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What about this take: having a child is a responsibility. An expensive and serious one. Why should others pay for your choice?

• matthewaveryusa 3y ago
  A basic function of societies is caring for the young (and old) and I believe socializing the costs of early rearing of children is beneficial to literally everyone. Right now you may not want to help, but when you're old and decrepit you'll want to be living in a functioning economy run by the children you contributed some money to help grow into contributing members of the economy.
• immibis 3y ago
  If that's your opinion, then fine, but you don't get to complain about birth rates, immigration, "the great replacement", or the unsustainability of the social security fund at the same time.
• pton_xd 3y ago
  The future of our society depends on it? The same reason we have taxes for any common good, whether it applies to you individually or not.
• nine_zeros 3y ago
  Nobody else should have to pay for the choice. But there is no reason for the cost of childcare to go up and up. Literally just enable better pregnancy/parenthood laws and create an abundance of childcare centers so that costs can go lower.
  • ericd 3y ago
    You can’t just magically have enough childcare workers willing to staff that abundance of childcare centers. It’s a free job market, and wages have to be competitive, given a tight labor market. We help run a preschool at the moment, and salaries are the vast majority of the budget, the facility is a very small part. It’s extremely hard to keep it staffed without blowing the budget. If you want childcare to be cheaper for parents it must be subsidized, or we need higher unemployment to make childcare a more attractive field (though I’d argue you don’t want people caring for your kids out of desperation for a job), or we must make housing cheaper/less competitive so that people can afford to do this out of passion.
    • SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
      Personally I’d be more than happy to have my taxes go up to subsidize childcare. It’s probably what, max 10-20$ for me individually? I’d even happily pay 100$ annually. Probably way more is used to fund my government’s surveillance program :(
      • ericd 3y ago
        Hm I’m not sure if the numbers pencil out there, daycare can be $2k/mo or more, especially in cities. If we wanted parents to have 80% subsidized daycare, assuming $1k/mo cost and $20/mo per adult, we’re looking at 40 adults per young kid. Not sure if that’s enough. Maybe not too far off, though? And could play with the percentage subsidy, even much less would be far better than it is now. I think it’s worth it from a societal standpoint, though.
        • immibis 3y ago
          How many children to a carer, 15? I don't think their salary is $360,000 so obviously most of that money is going somewhere other than what you'd expect to be the largest single expense. It's probably going to landlords and shareholders, because that's where most excess money goes.
          • ericd 3y ago
            I used to know these ratios better when I was reworking staffing, but I’m pretty sure state mandated child:teacher ratios are lower than that for preschool, lower still for toddler care, and something like 4:1 for infant care, and they must be met at all times to function, so you need backup/slack for eg teacher sickness. And in preschool, the teachers typically need non-licensed assistants to help with eg potty accidents that would otherwise pull them away from the main group. There is also a surprisingly significant administrative burden, so you typically need administrators to handle things like state licensing compliance (including surprise inspections), parent communication, teacher scheduling, billing, payroll and all that entails, cleaners, scheduling and contracts for photographers and activities, new enrollment, tours, marketing efforts, insurance, etc. These are typically older teachers, so they’re not the most technically savvy group, and perhaps less productive when tech is involved than you might think. And parents expect to be able to text them, pay online, etc nowadays, so they have to use some tech. But the upshot is sometimes they can pinch-hit to meet your ratios. SaaS has gotten surprisingly expensive, too, that was sucking a big hole in our budget when I first started helping out, and while I’ve trimmed it significantly, it’s still surprising how greedy they are compared to eg 5 years ago (looking at you, Gusto). Ditto thinks like online payments with credit cards, had to put a stop to that asap. The school I help with is a nonprofit, so there are no shareholders, and the building is a little more than 10% of our operating budget, so it’s not landlords. There is no “excess money” for us, but maybe there is in one of the corporate operations.
• purplerabbit 3y ago
  Because your choice will eventually generate the hundreds of thousands in tax revenue necessary to pay their Medicare and social security bills
• kdmccormick 3y ago
  Because raising children is essential to the survival of human society. If we're going to be brutually economic about it: Are you invested in stocks or bonds at all? If our population collapsed, so would those. Today's investors' wealth is tied to the success of future generations.
  • breather 3y ago
    > If we're going to be brutually economic about it: Are you invested in stocks or bonds at all? If our population collapsed, so would those. Today's investors' wealth is tied to the success of future generations. That's brutally market-oriented. The brutal economics looks like starvation.
  • silverquiet 3y ago
    Maintaining the global temperature within a certain range also seems important to the survival of human society, but we seem to be deadset on cranking up the thermostat regardless of the consequences. I suppose whatever will be, will be, but almost no aspect of modern life feels particularly rational; having children included. It's post-modernism all the way down, and if you want to have kids for whatever reason, then have them. If not, then don't. But I suspect very few people consider the perpetuation of society as high on the list of reasons to have them; that's too abstract while being woken up at 2AM is anything but abstract.
• twixfel 3y ago
  > Why should others pay for your choice? Procreation is a choice on an individual level but on a societal level it is not a choice at all, it is absolutely mandatory. So, someone's got to do it, and if you're not going to do it, then it's not unreasonable for you to contribute to others who are doing it. Furthermore, if you benefit from future workers in any way in the future without having kids of your own, if you did not help pay for those kids then you're effectively benefiting from something you didn't do shit for: namely raising those kids who became workers who ended up paying for your pension, keeping the lights on, keeping your ETFs growing, paying for your healthcare, etc., etc... So you should pay, or you should have kids.
  • anticorporate 3y ago
    > Procreation is a choice on an individual level but on a societal level it is not a choice at all, it is absolutely mandatory. It absolutely is not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Mov...
    • ericd 3y ago
      That just means that whatever society believes that will go extinct, and other societies will take over their resources. But sure, some society can commit suicide if it wants.
    • monkeywork 3y ago
      that sort of movement is thankfully incredibly niche. anyone serious about that sort of crazy should start with themselves.
• lostmsu 3y ago
  Cause if nobody has children your retirement funds are worthless, and you can't get bread at 70 or later because nobody is making it.
  • ericd 3y ago
    Well, they can just work until they drop.
• antisthenes 3y ago
  It's an interesting take... If you're a 12 year old teenager who doesn't know anything about society and economics. If you apply this logic to any resource that is being paid for collectively (like roads or maybe safety/rescue service), but not being used by everyone at all times, it becomes very evident why "others" pay for something that benefits the collective.
• fatihpense 3y ago
  I think having a healthy community where children can grow to be well-educated, good citizens benefit everyone in the long run. And it is not like zero-sum game, I think there might be very cheap solutions with good ROI. Solutions can be found if there is a will and concerted effort. I don't live in US, this is the model in my mind.
• tel 3y ago
  Just to play an argument out: Your future living situation may be in part dependent on the economic strength of the nation you're living in, and thus there's collective onus on ensuring that future. It's reasonable to believe that one ingredient in a vibrant economy is people, sufficiently many doing sufficiently interesting and valuable things. At the end of the day, the only way to have future people is to have children now. Thus, collectively, we should be interested in supporting the work of building future generations to be sufficiently populous, vibrant, and motivated, even if we are motivated only by our own future wellbeing. And I suppose you can magnify this argument to the degree that you feel collective responsibility toward our shared civilizations. And negate it to the degree that you believe we'll someday within your practical lifespan achieve miraculous technology like functional and practical immortality.
• SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  People raising children now are raising your future retirement financial future, in the form of nurses, paramedics, social safety nets, and governmental tax basis. They are raising people who will be lifting you and bathing you when you cannot yourself.
  • silverquiet 3y ago
    Perhaps this is not the most charitable take, but "because civilization is basically a tautology" isn't convincing this one that it needs to be perpetuated by my descendants. If it gives other people reason though, then I guess it's something.
    • SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
      If you don’t want to participate in society, then don’t. But don’t be using tech you certainly didn’t build to be debating about if it’s particularly “compelling” to live in a cooperative species.
• jdoliner 3y ago
  Because we really do live in a society. Believe it or not you were once someone's expensive and serious responsibility that others had to pay for. And in the future those expensive and serious responsibilities are going to be the tax base that's forced to pay for your care.