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I don't think people should worry about it like it's an upcoming disaster, but we should question whether lifestyle choices that do not include or make it signi

I don't think people should worry about it like it's an upcoming disaster, but we should question whether lifestyle choices that do not include or make it significantly less likely to have children are robbing us of important aspects the lifecycle and living a full life.

stavros 3y ago
A much-repeated finding in surveys is that childless adults are happier than parents.
- itsafarqueue 3y ago
  Keep telling yourself that. Kids can be not just ok, not just good, not just great, but the best thing to happen to you in your life. The studies you refer to regard subjective happiness at particularly difficult child rearing years. Anecdata from older childless people, the emptiness of childless life once you’re beyond young adulthood is sobering and incredibly sad. But yeah hold onto those studies that make you feel ok.
  - Devasta 3y ago
    "Can"
  - Arainach 3y ago
    Having children is a lot like religion: I have many friends with children and they're nice people and there is no issue, but there is a certain subset of the population that spends their entire life telling me how I'm an awful person making a huge mistake for not [having children/being religious] and they are utterly insufferable and not worth associating with.
    - bequanna 3y ago
      I hear you. But I will also tell you that until you have children of your own, it is difficult to appreciate the value they bring. They are work and require sacrifice but it can be an investment that pays huge dividends for the rest of your life. You’re not a bad person if you don’t want children. I think most people with children trying to convince you to have some are well-meaning and just don’t want childless people to miss out. My advice would be: if even a small part of you thinks you want children, just do it. You will grow to take on the new responsibility. But do it no later than age 40.
      - cryptonector 3y ago
        Having children changes you right quick. It's not just that you have to change therefore you do. No, it's that it just changes you. A 20 year old dad can be much more mature than a 40 year old bachelor, but there's no reason to think that the 20 year old dad will have less fun than the 40 year old bachelor. There are tangos (and I'm sure country western, and other songs) that are all about the protagonist having had all these ladies as a young man, but never a woman, or how they left behind the one woman who was their soul mate just to get laid with lots of others. E.g., Ansiedad, by Juan D'Arienzo[0][1]. Here's Nick Freitas talking about getting married at 19[2]. Be sure to read some of the comments. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoHGmN9GTPM [1] https://www.musixmatch.com/es/letras/Juan-D-Arienzo/Ansiedad/traduccion/ingles [2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/u_q8-UNk4TU
        Arainach 3y ago
        .....and there are plenty of stories of people who got married way too early before they learned who they are and were miserable and got divorced. There are plenty of kids with horror stories of growing up in those loveless households.
        bequanna 3y ago
        Right. But if you’re mature enough to debate the pros and cons of having children, you hopefully won’t be a bad parent if you do choose have kids.
        cryptonector 3y ago
        When a couple of 20 year olds decides to have children, they're almost certainly not mature enough, but it can and should work out.
        bart_spoon 3y ago
        Why are they most certainly not mature enough. Having children in the 20s or has been the standard for essentially all of human history until the last 30 years, give or take. What is it about modern society that makes human beings less fit for parenthood than every previous generation?
    - md2020 3y ago
      On the other hand, not having kids is also a lot like a religion now. I want kids and have many friends who do not and they’re nice people and there is no issue, but there is a certain subset of the population that spends their entire life telling me how I'm an awful person making a huge mistake for wanting children and they are utterly insufferable and not worth associating with. This is the dominant perspective on the social media that younger generations spend their time on. I’d argue that as a person in their mid 20s today, actually wanting kids is the bizarre position. I often feel alienated for openly stating it among good friends of mine.
  - temende 3y ago
    Given how personally you've taken that off-hand comment, I'm more inclined to believe the OP than your reply.
    - lucb1e 3y ago
      I would rather look at the data than at the tone of the comment. The person they were replying to referred to studies; the person you replied to essentially said they love their children and that childless people find emptyness towards the end. I believe both, and both can be true at the same time, especially considering that I've also heard of studies which showed that people tend to diminish past negative experiences. The parent will view the here and now, with happy children that are doing well, and see that all is good and hard work paid off. The childless person may have fewer people around them in later years, but which has a greater sum of total happiness? Being able to do for fifty years whatever your heart desires, or some happy end where someone sees you go and has a lot of pain from that? (I guess the latter might be partially my bias talking, but I truly am trying to view this objectively, like how one can explain both the study and the subjective experience from the person you replied to.)
  - zabzonk 3y ago
    well, if we are going the anecdata route i am 70 and childless and reasonably happy. i suspect i am not alone.
    - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      I’m 66, and never had kids. Never wanted them. Thinking back now, about what my life would be had I had kids with either of my first two mates, seems like a nightmare. I frankly love my life now.
      - malauxyeux 3y ago
        > I frankly love my life now. What's it like?
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    Seeing children today makes me feel a deep sense of despair. Watching them pushed as hard as possible into schoolwork and extracurriculars from elementary age so that they might have some shot at a decent life; it feels like watching them being fed into a meat grinder (one that I myself went through and would not wish on anyone). And I didn't have to grow up watching the trees die as my local climate changes from a humid sub-tropic coastal plain into a desert; I couldn't imagine being a child looking ahead at decades of climate change - hell, I'm not that old and so it terrifies me as well. I agree that a world without children sounds sad, but with the way things are going, a world with them seems sadder to me.
    - bad_user 3y ago
      My father was born into a world in which he had to practice subsistence farming if he didn't go to school. His was the first generation for which school was an option, and as a child he traveled 20 km by foot to the school and back, daily. My grandfather lost both parents since childhood, as back then hospitals were places where people went to die. He later fought in WW2, and lost his land to communists. During those years, he also witnessed the soviet-induced famine. We are literally living humanity’s best years. Children today basically get sad for not having enough time to play Roblox. How sad is it that they have schoolwork to do instead of subsistence farming? And we get sad over climate change while stuffing our faces with cheap and delicious food while the AC is on.
      - hotpotamus 3y ago
        I’d say the very definition of depression (and trust me, I’m quite the authority on it) is stuffing your face full of cheap carbs while you never leave your house for fear of heatstroke. Sure gives you time to ponder the meaninglessness of it all though, so if that’s your thing, then the world may indeed be headed in your favorite direction. Just ignore the ever rising levels of depression/anxiety/suicide in teens.
        bad_user 3y ago
        People dying from the elements is at an all time low! As a teenager, my grandfather lost a set of teeth due to the winter's cold, by sleeping in a cold barn, and he described it as a near-death experience. If anything, for many regions of the world, the weather getting hotter may be a relief for the poor that don't have heating in the winter. We have zero reasons to be more depressed than prior generations. If we are depressed, don't you think the constant fear porn from mass-media has more to do with it? PS: it's not just the carbs that are cheaper and more available. It's everything, including meat. Staples of any healthy vegan diet, like green peas, or lentils, weren't even available until ~1960, after industrial agriculture caught on. Never mind the availability of fresh fruits year-round. My grandparents basically lived on a diet of polenta, potatoes, milk, and eggs, as that's what they were able to grow.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - CatWChainsaw 3y ago
    You sound suspiciously emotional about it.
- candiddevmike 3y ago
  What age group are they comparing? I would bet later in life the parents are on average happier as the kids become adults. Who cares for the childless?
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Retirement communities and nursing homes are full of parents with children who do not visit them. How selfish does one must be to have children to have a retirement plan? Society cares for the childless, and we will have to learn to manage a declining population because of a population expansion everyone thought (how silly in a finite system) would last forever. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4104138-one-quarter-of-adult-children-estranged-from-a-parent/ https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4104138-one-qua... ("One quarter of adult children estranged from a parent") https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12898 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12898 ("Parent–adult child estrangement in the United States by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality") https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23124345 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23124345 ("New China law says children 'must visit parents'")
    - jezzamon 3y ago
      "Society cares for the childless" - across lots of different cultures, and for a lot of human history, that is/was not the case.
      - toomuchtodo 3y ago
        Sure, that's how free will works, both individually and collectively. Sometimes people go without or die alone (even if they have children or society has the means and infrastructure), and that is an unfortunate reality of the human experience. Hopefully we do better but there are no guarantees. Welcome to the shit show, enjoy the ride.
  - bequanna 3y ago
    Bingo. Also, self-reported happiness surveys are BS. I’ve been to Scandinavia. They are definitely NOT among the happiest people in the world. They simply think they should say they are happy.
- jl6 3y ago
  “All joy, no fun” and vice versa. You can’t really win. Actually, grandparents have it good. They get the fulfilment of family without the relentless grind of parenting.
- xedrac 3y ago
  I have six kids. During the earlier years of their upbringing, it was very difficult. I'm not surprised surveys would reflect this. But now that they are old enough to be mostly autonomous, I realize it has been the most rewarding experience I think this life has to offer. I often wondered if I had made a mistake by choosing to have kids. Now I am immensely grateful that I stuck with it. I realize it's not for everyone, but I'd like to see such surveys at more advanced ages. I'm willing to bet the findings would be flipped.
  - SirMaster 3y ago
    But why is happiness later better than happiness now? So it only matters how you feel about it at the end? IMO the journey is more important than the end. I’m just asking open ended questions here. I don’t have any answers.
    - ochoseis 3y ago
      > But why is happiness later better than happiness now? Here are a few more to ponder: - Why does the squirrel bury nuts in the warmer months instead of eating them right away? - Why save money instead of spending every paycheck? - Why not spend every day gaming, drinking and smoking?
      - satvikpendem 3y ago
        True, however there's no guarantee that children will take care of you later, many such cases where it doesn't happen. But still, I get your point about hedonism, the Greeks thought about this often.
        kevinventullo 3y ago
        I think the long-term satisfaction of having happy, healthy adult children is a little deeper than how well they take care of you in old age.
        3y ago
- bequanna 3y ago
  Does this survey ask people after age 45, 55, and so on? The winter can be much colder for those without warm memories of summer.
- daft_pink 3y ago
  I think the modern day western world is obsessed with "maximizing happiness" as the purpose of life and that's a lifestyle choice that people have adopted as religion plays a lesser role in their lives. I'm not sure we should accept the premise that maximizing subjective happiness is a suitable replacement as if we all just didn't have children and were thus "happier", would the world really work or would there be no future for humanity? I'm not sure what the purpose of life is and obviously for every person that purpose is probably very different, but I'm skeptical of the idea that maximizing subjective happiness is a good life philosophy and it seems like everyone has adopted it everywhere.
  - DandyDev 3y ago
    But what is the alternative? You've said it yourself that religion plays a lesser role in people's lives, so people apparently don't feel they should optimize for a better hypothetical afterlife. What remains are two options: 1. Optimize for the future/betterment of humanity 2. Optimize for your own happiness Option 1 feels a bit like optimizing for something that will always be our of reach for me personally. It's almost like a reverse pyramid game where I'm doing something that only people who will live after me will benefit from. Except they won't really, as they'll be optimizing for yet farther into the future. I'm perfectly happy optimizing to keep the planet a great place to live, but as half of a consciously childless couple I don't feel particularly inclined to make sure that there are actually descendants to enjoy this planet. I'm okay if other species inherit the earth
    - daft_pink 3y ago
      I'm just a commenter on hacker news, I can't tell you what the purpose of life is. Here are some of my thoughts though. I believe that everything should be taken in moderation and that extremes generally are bad, so you should not totally optimize on any one thing, but should generally do somethings you enjoy and some that give you pleasure. You should do somethings for humanity and somethings for the community and to make others do well. You should probably take some ideas from religion and integrate them into your life, but not become a zealot. I think you should try to have children if you can, because children seem to be some aspect of the world and life that's important. I think you should try and make some money and work in a field that get good pay, but that you do enjoy and that's relatively stable. I think you should try and be there for your family and view them as a small community, but not expect anything from them or try and fight with them. I think you should avoid drugs and other things that are generally bad for you if you can. To the people who believe that happiness is the point of life. I also think there is a decent amount of scientific evidence that people's happiness levels are pretty static over time and if you find some success in your life, you will be happy for a short time, but your happiness will return to the static level of your life. I think that people, and things, and many external things cannot make you happy and happiness can only be found from within. However, I don't think that that is the point. I think that our natural dissatisfaction with the world and unhappiness about it is how we make the world a better place and that it is how progress is made by celebrating our wins and then becoming dissatisfied and trying to be better.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
If people want children and can't because of socioeconomic systems (working arrangements, basic living need costs, childcare, etc), society is robbing those potential parents of joy. Conversely, if systems are preventing people who don't want to be parents from affirming those reproductive choices, society is again robbing those potential childfree people of joy (as well as the suffering of unwanted children brought into the world; roughly ~40% of annual pregnancies in the US and globally are unintended [1]). If both cohorts are supported and optimized for, and population decline continues, the population decline is not something to be solved for. Optimize for societal systems to continue to function at certain levels in the face of a declining population [2]. As usual, Japan will lead the way and show us the future. EDIT: Ripped straight from the piece in question: > People aren’t selfish for choosing smaller families. We are powerfully programmed by Darwinian evolution to want to have offspring, or at least to have sex, but women are also endowed with the instinct to limit reproduction to the number who can be raised with a high probability of success in life. When women have large numbers of children, it’s often a result of high child mortality or lack of power over their own lives. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36127247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36127247 (citations) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37717497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37717497
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
  > as well as the suffering of unwanted children brought into the world; roughly ~40% of annual pregnancies in the US and globally are unintended [1] Unintended pregnancy != unwanted child. There are a huge number of children born whose conception was unintended but have always been loved and wanted by their parents starting at birth or even during pregnancy.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Sure, but we should be driving the number of unwanted children to as close to zero as possible. Lots of work left to go in that regard based on the data. Hopefully unintended but wanted children are loved adequately.
foogazi 3y ago
> but we should question whether lifestyle choices that do not include or make it significantly less likely to have children are robbing us of important aspects the lifecycle and living a full life I did question it and answered that to each their own, it’s an entirely personal choice
mola 3y ago
It's not just choices, it's the economic reality. I don't want my children to grow poor..my generation knows how poor and not poor looks like, while older generations were generally poor ignorance made bringing more kids into that not such a big deal. But we are not ignorant, and we know that this economy is very good at giving us the shiny but non important stuff, while depriving us a stable home healthcare and education. At that, I'd rather have less children that are more affluent. And I'd rather economy change it's broken record of growth at all costs, cause that's definitely not sustainable.
- bequanna 3y ago
  > At that, I'd rather have less children that are more affluent. I can tell you that the affluent upper middle class people I’ve encountered do not seem to be (on average) any happier than middle middle class people. Nicer cars, bigger houses but not happier.
  - matthewdgreen 3y ago
    I have seen what old age and infirmity looks like when you’re poor and it isn’t always that pretty. We all get old and fall apart eventually, but the ability to choose your situation (and take care of yourself so that you make it farther into old age with good health) matters a whole lot. This doesn’t make everyone implicitly happy, but it gives you a better chance.
    - bequanna 3y ago
      I didn’t include poor in my comment. Poor people (lower and lower middle) seem to have a much lower quality of life and general happiness vs middle middle and upper middle.
  - mola 3y ago
    I think middle class just doesn't exist anymore,or won't exist soon enough. Concentration of wealth killed it. Hence less children.
throwaway5959 3y ago
Not having kids is great. I thought I’d regret it but the older I get the happier I am with the decision. If you want to have them, great, but they’re not for everyone.

stavros 3y ago

A much-repeated finding in surveys is that childless adults are happier than parents.

itsafarqueue 3y ago
Keep telling yourself that. Kids can be not just ok, not just good, not just great, but the best thing to happen to you in your life. The studies you refer to regard subjective happiness at particularly difficult child rearing years. Anecdata from older childless people, the emptiness of childless life once you’re beyond young adulthood is sobering and incredibly sad. But yeah hold onto those studies that make you feel ok.
- Devasta 3y ago
  "Can"
- Arainach 3y ago
  Having children is a lot like religion: I have many friends with children and they're nice people and there is no issue, but there is a certain subset of the population that spends their entire life telling me how I'm an awful person making a huge mistake for not [having children/being religious] and they are utterly insufferable and not worth associating with.
  - bequanna 3y ago
    I hear you. But I will also tell you that until you have children of your own, it is difficult to appreciate the value they bring. They are work and require sacrifice but it can be an investment that pays huge dividends for the rest of your life. You’re not a bad person if you don’t want children. I think most people with children trying to convince you to have some are well-meaning and just don’t want childless people to miss out. My advice would be: if even a small part of you thinks you want children, just do it. You will grow to take on the new responsibility. But do it no later than age 40.
    - cryptonector 3y ago
      Having children changes you right quick. It's not just that you have to change therefore you do. No, it's that it just changes you. A 20 year old dad can be much more mature than a 40 year old bachelor, but there's no reason to think that the 20 year old dad will have less fun than the 40 year old bachelor. There are tangos (and I'm sure country western, and other songs) that are all about the protagonist having had all these ladies as a young man, but never a woman, or how they left behind the one woman who was their soul mate just to get laid with lots of others. E.g., Ansiedad, by Juan D'Arienzo[0][1]. Here's Nick Freitas talking about getting married at 19[2]. Be sure to read some of the comments. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoHGmN9GTPM [1] https://www.musixmatch.com/es/letras/Juan-D-Arienzo/Ansiedad/traduccion/ingles [2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/u_q8-UNk4TU
      - Arainach 3y ago
        .....and there are plenty of stories of people who got married way too early before they learned who they are and were miserable and got divorced. There are plenty of kids with horror stories of growing up in those loveless households.
        bequanna 3y ago
        Right. But if you’re mature enough to debate the pros and cons of having children, you hopefully won’t be a bad parent if you do choose have kids.
        cryptonector 3y ago
        When a couple of 20 year olds decides to have children, they're almost certainly not mature enough, but it can and should work out.
        bart_spoon 3y ago
        Why are they most certainly not mature enough. Having children in the 20s or has been the standard for essentially all of human history until the last 30 years, give or take. What is it about modern society that makes human beings less fit for parenthood than every previous generation?
  - md2020 3y ago
    On the other hand, not having kids is also a lot like a religion now. I want kids and have many friends who do not and they’re nice people and there is no issue, but there is a certain subset of the population that spends their entire life telling me how I'm an awful person making a huge mistake for wanting children and they are utterly insufferable and not worth associating with. This is the dominant perspective on the social media that younger generations spend their time on. I’d argue that as a person in their mid 20s today, actually wanting kids is the bizarre position. I often feel alienated for openly stating it among good friends of mine.
- temende 3y ago
  Given how personally you've taken that off-hand comment, I'm more inclined to believe the OP than your reply.
  - lucb1e 3y ago
    I would rather look at the data than at the tone of the comment. The person they were replying to referred to studies; the person you replied to essentially said they love their children and that childless people find emptyness towards the end. I believe both, and both can be true at the same time, especially considering that I've also heard of studies which showed that people tend to diminish past negative experiences. The parent will view the here and now, with happy children that are doing well, and see that all is good and hard work paid off. The childless person may have fewer people around them in later years, but which has a greater sum of total happiness? Being able to do for fifty years whatever your heart desires, or some happy end where someone sees you go and has a lot of pain from that? (I guess the latter might be partially my bias talking, but I truly am trying to view this objectively, like how one can explain both the study and the subjective experience from the person you replied to.)
- zabzonk 3y ago
  well, if we are going the anecdata route i am 70 and childless and reasonably happy. i suspect i am not alone.
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    I’m 66, and never had kids. Never wanted them. Thinking back now, about what my life would be had I had kids with either of my first two mates, seems like a nightmare. I frankly love my life now.
    - malauxyeux 3y ago
      > I frankly love my life now. What's it like?
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Seeing children today makes me feel a deep sense of despair. Watching them pushed as hard as possible into schoolwork and extracurriculars from elementary age so that they might have some shot at a decent life; it feels like watching them being fed into a meat grinder (one that I myself went through and would not wish on anyone). And I didn't have to grow up watching the trees die as my local climate changes from a humid sub-tropic coastal plain into a desert; I couldn't imagine being a child looking ahead at decades of climate change - hell, I'm not that old and so it terrifies me as well. I agree that a world without children sounds sad, but with the way things are going, a world with them seems sadder to me.
  - bad_user 3y ago
    My father was born into a world in which he had to practice subsistence farming if he didn't go to school. His was the first generation for which school was an option, and as a child he traveled 20 km by foot to the school and back, daily. My grandfather lost both parents since childhood, as back then hospitals were places where people went to die. He later fought in WW2, and lost his land to communists. During those years, he also witnessed the soviet-induced famine. We are literally living humanity’s best years. Children today basically get sad for not having enough time to play Roblox. How sad is it that they have schoolwork to do instead of subsistence farming? And we get sad over climate change while stuffing our faces with cheap and delicious food while the AC is on.
    - hotpotamus 3y ago
      I’d say the very definition of depression (and trust me, I’m quite the authority on it) is stuffing your face full of cheap carbs while you never leave your house for fear of heatstroke. Sure gives you time to ponder the meaninglessness of it all though, so if that’s your thing, then the world may indeed be headed in your favorite direction. Just ignore the ever rising levels of depression/anxiety/suicide in teens.
      - bad_user 3y ago
        People dying from the elements is at an all time low! As a teenager, my grandfather lost a set of teeth due to the winter's cold, by sleeping in a cold barn, and he described it as a near-death experience. If anything, for many regions of the world, the weather getting hotter may be a relief for the poor that don't have heating in the winter. We have zero reasons to be more depressed than prior generations. If we are depressed, don't you think the constant fear porn from mass-media has more to do with it? PS: it's not just the carbs that are cheaper and more available. It's everything, including meat. Staples of any healthy vegan diet, like green peas, or lentils, weren't even available until ~1960, after industrial agriculture caught on. Never mind the availability of fresh fruits year-round. My grandparents basically lived on a diet of polenta, potatoes, milk, and eggs, as that's what they were able to grow.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  You sound suspiciously emotional about it.
candiddevmike 3y ago
What age group are they comparing? I would bet later in life the parents are on average happier as the kids become adults. Who cares for the childless?
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Retirement communities and nursing homes are full of parents with children who do not visit them. How selfish does one must be to have children to have a retirement plan? Society cares for the childless, and we will have to learn to manage a declining population because of a population expansion everyone thought (how silly in a finite system) would last forever. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4104138-one-quarter-of-adult-children-estranged-from-a-parent/ https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/4104138-one-qua... ("One quarter of adult children estranged from a parent") https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12898 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12898 ("Parent–adult child estrangement in the United States by gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality") https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23124345 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23124345 ("New China law says children 'must visit parents'")
  - jezzamon 3y ago
    "Society cares for the childless" - across lots of different cultures, and for a lot of human history, that is/was not the case.
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      Sure, that's how free will works, both individually and collectively. Sometimes people go without or die alone (even if they have children or society has the means and infrastructure), and that is an unfortunate reality of the human experience. Hopefully we do better but there are no guarantees. Welcome to the shit show, enjoy the ride.
- bequanna 3y ago
  Bingo. Also, self-reported happiness surveys are BS. I’ve been to Scandinavia. They are definitely NOT among the happiest people in the world. They simply think they should say they are happy.
jl6 3y ago
“All joy, no fun” and vice versa. You can’t really win. Actually, grandparents have it good. They get the fulfilment of family without the relentless grind of parenting.
xedrac 3y ago
I have six kids. During the earlier years of their upbringing, it was very difficult. I'm not surprised surveys would reflect this. But now that they are old enough to be mostly autonomous, I realize it has been the most rewarding experience I think this life has to offer. I often wondered if I had made a mistake by choosing to have kids. Now I am immensely grateful that I stuck with it. I realize it's not for everyone, but I'd like to see such surveys at more advanced ages. I'm willing to bet the findings would be flipped.
- SirMaster 3y ago
  But why is happiness later better than happiness now? So it only matters how you feel about it at the end? IMO the journey is more important than the end. I’m just asking open ended questions here. I don’t have any answers.
  - ochoseis 3y ago
    > But why is happiness later better than happiness now? Here are a few more to ponder: - Why does the squirrel bury nuts in the warmer months instead of eating them right away? - Why save money instead of spending every paycheck? - Why not spend every day gaming, drinking and smoking?
    - satvikpendem 3y ago
      True, however there's no guarantee that children will take care of you later, many such cases where it doesn't happen. But still, I get your point about hedonism, the Greeks thought about this often.
      - kevinventullo 3y ago
        I think the long-term satisfaction of having happy, healthy adult children is a little deeper than how well they take care of you in old age.
        3y ago
bequanna 3y ago
Does this survey ask people after age 45, 55, and so on? The winter can be much colder for those without warm memories of summer.
daft_pink 3y ago
I think the modern day western world is obsessed with "maximizing happiness" as the purpose of life and that's a lifestyle choice that people have adopted as religion plays a lesser role in their lives. I'm not sure we should accept the premise that maximizing subjective happiness is a suitable replacement as if we all just didn't have children and were thus "happier", would the world really work or would there be no future for humanity? I'm not sure what the purpose of life is and obviously for every person that purpose is probably very different, but I'm skeptical of the idea that maximizing subjective happiness is a good life philosophy and it seems like everyone has adopted it everywhere.
- DandyDev 3y ago
  But what is the alternative? You've said it yourself that religion plays a lesser role in people's lives, so people apparently don't feel they should optimize for a better hypothetical afterlife. What remains are two options: 1. Optimize for the future/betterment of humanity 2. Optimize for your own happiness Option 1 feels a bit like optimizing for something that will always be our of reach for me personally. It's almost like a reverse pyramid game where I'm doing something that only people who will live after me will benefit from. Except they won't really, as they'll be optimizing for yet farther into the future. I'm perfectly happy optimizing to keep the planet a great place to live, but as half of a consciously childless couple I don't feel particularly inclined to make sure that there are actually descendants to enjoy this planet. I'm okay if other species inherit the earth
  - daft_pink 3y ago
    I'm just a commenter on hacker news, I can't tell you what the purpose of life is. Here are some of my thoughts though. I believe that everything should be taken in moderation and that extremes generally are bad, so you should not totally optimize on any one thing, but should generally do somethings you enjoy and some that give you pleasure. You should do somethings for humanity and somethings for the community and to make others do well. You should probably take some ideas from religion and integrate them into your life, but not become a zealot. I think you should try to have children if you can, because children seem to be some aspect of the world and life that's important. I think you should try and make some money and work in a field that get good pay, but that you do enjoy and that's relatively stable. I think you should try and be there for your family and view them as a small community, but not expect anything from them or try and fight with them. I think you should avoid drugs and other things that are generally bad for you if you can. To the people who believe that happiness is the point of life. I also think there is a decent amount of scientific evidence that people's happiness levels are pretty static over time and if you find some success in your life, you will be happy for a short time, but your happiness will return to the static level of your life. I think that people, and things, and many external things cannot make you happy and happiness can only be found from within. However, I don't think that that is the point. I think that our natural dissatisfaction with the world and unhappiness about it is how we make the world a better place and that it is how progress is made by celebrating our wins and then becoming dissatisfied and trying to be better.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

If people want children and can't because of socioeconomic systems (working arrangements, basic living need costs, childcare, etc), society is robbing those potential parents of joy. Conversely, if systems are preventing people who don't want to be parents from affirming those reproductive choices, society is again robbing those potential childfree people of joy (as well as the suffering of unwanted children brought into the world; roughly ~40% of annual pregnancies in the US and globally are unintended [1]). If both cohorts are supported and optimized for, and population decline continues, the population decline is not something to be solved for. Optimize for societal systems to continue to function at certain levels in the face of a declining population [2]. As usual, Japan will lead the way and show us the future. EDIT: Ripped straight from the piece in question: > People aren’t selfish for choosing smaller families. We are powerfully programmed by Darwinian evolution to want to have offspring, or at least to have sex, but women are also endowed with the instinct to limit reproduction to the number who can be raised with a high probability of success in life. When women have large numbers of children, it’s often a result of high child mortality or lack of power over their own lives. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36127247 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36127247 (citations) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37717497 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37717497

RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago
> as well as the suffering of unwanted children brought into the world; roughly ~40% of annual pregnancies in the US and globally are unintended [1] Unintended pregnancy != unwanted child. There are a huge number of children born whose conception was unintended but have always been loved and wanted by their parents starting at birth or even during pregnancy.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Sure, but we should be driving the number of unwanted children to as close to zero as possible. Lots of work left to go in that regard based on the data. Hopefully unintended but wanted children are loved adequately.

foogazi 3y ago

> but we should question whether lifestyle choices that do not include or make it significantly less likely to have children are robbing us of important aspects the lifecycle and living a full life I did question it and answered that to each their own, it’s an entirely personal choice

mola 3y ago

It's not just choices, it's the economic reality. I don't want my children to grow poor..my generation knows how poor and not poor looks like, while older generations were generally poor ignorance made bringing more kids into that not such a big deal. But we are not ignorant, and we know that this economy is very good at giving us the shiny but non important stuff, while depriving us a stable home healthcare and education. At that, I'd rather have less children that are more affluent. And I'd rather economy change it's broken record of growth at all costs, cause that's definitely not sustainable.

bequanna 3y ago
> At that, I'd rather have less children that are more affluent. I can tell you that the affluent upper middle class people I’ve encountered do not seem to be (on average) any happier than middle middle class people. Nicer cars, bigger houses but not happier.
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  I have seen what old age and infirmity looks like when you’re poor and it isn’t always that pretty. We all get old and fall apart eventually, but the ability to choose your situation (and take care of yourself so that you make it farther into old age with good health) matters a whole lot. This doesn’t make everyone implicitly happy, but it gives you a better chance.
  - bequanna 3y ago
    I didn’t include poor in my comment. Poor people (lower and lower middle) seem to have a much lower quality of life and general happiness vs middle middle and upper middle.
- mola 3y ago
  I think middle class just doesn't exist anymore,or won't exist soon enough. Concentration of wealth killed it. Hence less children.

throwaway5959 3y ago

Not having kids is great. I thought I’d regret it but the older I get the happier I am with the decision. If you want to have them, great, but they’re not for everyone.