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It's actually that life is too good for childless people, especially when they're wealthier. Take a DINK couple with high paying jobs, say an engineer and an at

It's actually that life is too good for childless people, especially when they're wealthier. Take a DINK couple with high paying jobs, say an engineer and an attorney. Without kids they can have a nice house or condo, regularly take great vacations, and still be saving enough to have the option of retiring in their 40s or 50s. But with kids, that mostly goes out the window. The societal expectation is that you should spend basically all your disposable time and income on your children, which means expensive daycare, travel sports (gotta start working on the college applications in grade school), and private schools (or "good" "public" schools gated by living in a super-expensive area). And even if you can avoid all that, colleges are very good at figuring out how much money you have and declaring that to be the tuition. As a high-earning childless person myself, I'll freely acknowledge that I should have been paying significantly higher taxes in order to benefit my counterparts who did have kids. Although it would be a challenge to do that redistribution in a way that doesn't just get captured by daycare and college.

yieldcrv 2y ago
It was actually just last month that I saw one of these falling birthrate articles actually acknowledge that many people just don't want kids, it was in the NY Times too I'm glad we are finally getting representation on that instead of all these social science studies contorting themselves to come to a child-aspiring default that couples are somehow failing to reach https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/well/family/grandparent-grandchild-childfree.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/well/family/grandparent-g...
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Even people who do want kids frequently don't want many of them. Even back in the old days, a lot of people didn't have kids; not everyone actually got married. But people who did get married had lots more kids, so they more than made up for all the people who didn't. (Don't forget, women frequently died in childbirth.) They didn't have reliable birth control, so women didn't have much choice about how many kids they'd have. These days, people can choose, and many women are happy to stop after 1 or 2 kids. Going through childbirth is, by many accounts, very difficult and not that much fun. All the pro-natalists (generally men) seem to completely dismiss actual women's feelings on this matter for some reason. Anyway, when you have a society where a bunch of people aren't having kids, and the ones who are are only having 1-2, sometimes 3, the overall average is going to be well under 2, which isn't enough to maintain the population level. As I've said many times before in these discussions online, societies need to come up with a new model, because obviously the old one isn't working, and it isn't going to come back.
cosmic_cheese 2y ago
There’s also some number of couples whose ideal is “no compromises” — that is, they hope to both provide the best for their kids and keep the nice house, vacations, comfortable retirement, etc. While this isn’t strictly impossible, it’s well beyond the reach of most, and so I suspect that this group mostly ends up never having kids.
dividefuel 2y ago
I agree with this as the main factor (over cost) for the falling birth rate. The opportunity cost of having children has never been higher: you give up leisure, hobbies, rest, social life, and income. Whether or not children is worth this cost is a personal thing, but it seems kinda obvious that as the cost increases, fewer will pay it.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > The opportunity cost of having children has never been higher: you give up leisure, hobbies, rest, social life, and income. Those things are given up because parenting-time is up 20-fold from a few generations ago. From the 1960s back, kids needed parents a few hours a week. But we reduced kids' roaming area from many sq mi to just their own property. At the same time, we instituted 24/7 adulting. Most of those hours are filled by parents. Kids have permanently lost daily hours of peer-driven growth - the ones where complex social interactions occurred naturally. Parents are now left with trying to construct artificial environments (leagues, programs) where maybe some of that can occur. Those efforts eat time and resources. And they're a poor substitute for the vital environments that kids once had for free. I spent 20x the time parenting that my mom did. For all of that, my kids had little-to-none of my growth opportunities.
  - anigbrowl 2y ago
    I think it's a mistake to project changes in US society onto that in Japan. Kids there are still largely free range.
    - askonomm 2y ago
      Yeah, also in Northern Europe. Here in Estonia kids as young as 5 years old even go to kindergarten on their own. They take a bus and are just fine. Seems to me the helicopter parenting is mostly a thing in the U.S.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
colechristensen 2y ago
The parents I've seen seem to spend every waking second doting on their children for at least a decade, which seems strange to me. This hovering "what can I do to satisfy your desires" literally just constantly (I've also seen people doing this with their dogs). Maybe I'm missing something or my sample size is skewed. The people I've seen doing this are also just exhausted, as they've said directly. It comes down to... the rent is too damn high. Young people without children willing to spend 1/3 to 1/2 of their total income servicing mortgages or rent drives the cost of living to ridiculous levels. People can't afford child care either by having family live close to high earners to help, or to hire child care. So it's unaffordable. There's nowhere to live for families in high density places (apartment buildings optimize for the highest rent tennants, 1,2 BR single people) Lots of people want children but can't engineer a life for themselves to have them without moving somewhere really far out and boring or being in the top 5% of earners, or living in squalor despite high incomes.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  >The parents I've seen seem to spend every waking second doting on their children for at least a decade, which seems strange to me. This hovering "what can I do to satisfy your desires" literally just constantly While some of it may be overbearing parenting due to wanting kids to compete or train for the future, there is also the fact that kids cannot be left alone, and there is no extended family supervision for them, and you are told you cannot let your kids sit in front of a screen all day. There’s no neighborhood chain of kids ranging from high school to toddler playing with each other, there is no outside time without adult supervision, an adult who is legally liable. And of course, cars. The environment is optimized for cars, not kids, so kids either sit inside alone or with 1 sibling or they need to be supervised. Not applicable to every single family, but many.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  It really cannot be understated how few homes we have built since the Great Recession and the terrible impact that has had on COL. To give an idea of what it takes to solve a housing shortfall, Sweden successfully embarked on a million-homes program over a decade in the 70s when the population of Sweden was 7 million. NYC recently just celebrated the passage of a zoning reform that allows at most 80,000 new homes, and the population is 8.2 million.
nemo44x 2y ago
I enjoyed the DINK life for some time but eventually we decided to start a family and my only regret in life is we didn't start it sooner and have more kids. In the end all the fancy restaurants, nights out, fancy vacations with first class airfare, etc were nice in some ways but pretty vapid and unimportant when looking back. I won't value those years very much compared to the years with children in the house. The energy kids bring into a home and the meaningfulness of their existence is just incomparable in my experience. But I get it, and the idea of kids was scary at one time, but it turns out they're pretty easy all things considered. Lots of talk of "sacrifice" between friends back then but as it turns out you're trading something of little value for something of immense value. But to each their own!
- hanslovsky 2y ago
  I have the sentiment. would have loved to have kids earlier, but I also was not in the position at an earlier age, relationship wise. Growing up in Germany, having kids in your 20s was almost frowned upon. what a terrible societal development!
- thinkingtoilet 2y ago
  Just to provide a counter point you don't hear. I have two kids and very much wish I didn't. I love my kids. I sacrifice for them. There are many moments of great joy. However, I don't really have a life any more. I would rather spend my time traveling, visiting friends, playing music. I would rather have more money. I would rather be healthier. I would rather have time for my hobbies. Being a good parent is a lot and nearly all consuming. I feel like a lot of people feel like I do but are too decent to say it out loud.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    that's sad (I don't mean that in a mean way) yeah, there are times when I've felt like that, but they're pretty fleeting at what age did you start a family? I think one of the reasons people should start a family a bit later (early thirties maybe) is so that they have the opportunity to experience/enjoy those things without kids (and not have to wait until the kids are all grown up and then they're in their 50s and it's just not the same as the stuff you can do in your 20s).
lotsofpulp 2y ago
Excellent comment. All the evidences suggests to me that removing Social Security/Medicare and other wealth transfers from young to old are actually the only thing that might incentivize sufficient people to have sufficient kids to meet replacement TFR AND raise the kids into the type of adults you want. The reasoning behind this is even with the best quality of life, many women will have 2 children, but insufficient women will have 3 or more children such that it offsets the number of women who have 0 or 1 child. Those with zero children really drag the average down, and if it is because partnering with a certain portion of the population is simply not worth it, then government efforts on improving quality of life via work and benefit policies are not going to bump TFR to replacement rate.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  Humanity has never seen such an extreme wealth transfer from young to old as what is going on in the industrialized world right now. Pensions: Wealth transfer from young to old. Taxes: Wealth transfer from young to old. Socialized health care: Wealth transfer from young to old. Rent: Wealth transfer from young to old. Inflation: Wealth transfer from young to old (who owns the real estate?) Capitalism: Wealth transfer from young to old (who owns the stocks?) National debt: Wealth transfer from young to old. It seems like all different systems at work in industrialized nations has the single goal of extracting all productivity from young workers and giving it to the current generation of elderly. Even the ideologies who on the face are against each other (socialism vs capitalism) both work mainly to reap everything form the young to give to the old.
deleted 2y ago
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hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago
I'll gladly volunteer to be the first to say "Fuck those societal expectations, that's insane." You don't owe your children much more than food, love and a roof over their head. Sure, you might want to give them the world, but don't listen to anyone telling you that's the expectation - that's a fast track to resentment.
- a1exyz 2y ago
  I agree and think that this is a huge growing cultural expectation - "you have to live for your children". I don't think it used to be the case. Well OK sure I get that that would be good for kids but you're also gonna limit the number of parents if that's the new normal.
  - orangecat 2y ago
    Well OK sure I get that that would be good for kids And past a certain point it's not.
    - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
      >> Well OK sure I get that that would be good for kids > And past a certain point it's not. Where do you estimate that point is? What harm do you believe lies past it?
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        Parent of small kids here. Tricky to estimate, because the desire to not have your kids be worse off because you didn't do enough, and the desire for them to have it better than you, are strong and not really bounded. However, the idea of parents giving 100% of themselves to the children is also an unsustainable one, and fundamentally horrifying one - if everyone things this way, generation by generation, then this robs existence from any meaning. It's admitting that all the good and nice things in the world, all that separates us from other animals, are all accidents, all made by people who weren't good enough at giving their children their best, and instead wasted their time on stuff like arts and sciences. So I think there must be a point somewhere. And perhaps a hint of that is the observation that kids are better off with happy parents than with unhappy ones.
wkat4242 2y ago
Don't feel bad. It's good for the planet and society to reduce the population somewhat. It can't keep growing forever. All the major problems we have are a result of it. Climate change, housing shortage, resource conflicts etc. The demographic problems during a decline are only temporary. If the world had only 1 billion people it would be a lot easier. The whole idea that humanity would go extinct is ridiculous. And humanity is still growing anyway due to the many countries that don't have falling birth rates. There's always people wanting to have kids. This is just society adjusting itself to the current overpopulation.
imetatroll 2y ago
I entirely agree. And when you lather on the tidal wave of endless "entertainment" and options available to most people they end up framing everything in their minds as "having fun" vs "having kids". I also know many women who say they don't want to "do that to their bodies" so ... where is this all going. And honestly I agree with the "if you are single you should pay more taxes" as a motivator to either get you to have your own kids or to simply ease the burden of those who are actually making humanity move forward but as a parent I am a bit biased here. It should be a significant amount.
- talldayo 2y ago
  There are already taxes subsidies for couples and children - that's plenty enough incentive for wealthy families that can support kids. Families that cannot afford to feed or house children should in no way be penalized for refusing to start a family in their present situation.
  - missedthecue 2y ago
    The reality is the public pensions and healthcare implode without much higher taxes or much higher birth rates. Like the Italian president told his people a few years, if we want things to stay the same, things are going to have to change.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      Things aren't going to change. America just let private wealth run rampant over everything that matters and now wants to usher in an administration that (supposedly) wouldn't touch your civil liberties with a 50 foot pole. Trump says he won't even commit to banning abortion (sounds about right for a guy that's probably paid for dozens of 'em). So... how are things going to "have to change" if you can't threaten childless couples and you can't redistribute the wealth to people that do want kids? Continually fearmonger mandatory birthing policies without actually implementing them just to get a rise out of your citizens? It's nonsense, and if America is given a choice between "fucking over wealthy people" and "having tons of kids to staff McDonalds at minimum wage" I can tell you offhand which one 99% of citizens will pick. We're already halfway there given how far China has surpassed the US in places - today's Americans hate capitalism so much they're content watching their country suffer until businesses get the message.
bamboozled 2y ago
Many young people I know see nothing being done about climate change and make their choice right there. These are also smart, educated well-off types. The level of suffering we can expect isn't something they want to introduce children into. I find it surprising this is somehow difficult for governments to grok.
- Gareth321 2y ago
  I doubt it will make a difference but climate change isn't expected to cause great suffering. Compared to great filter events, climate change doesn't even register. Estimates are of a rise of [2-4 degrees centigrade by 2100.](https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/climatechange/science#:~:text=Global%20temperature%20is%20projected%20to,7.2%20degrees%20Fahrenheit\)%20by%202100 https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/climatechange/science#:~:text=Glob....) This will likely result in an [increase](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014014/meta#:~:text=Regionally%2C%20it%20is%20likely%20that,increases%20may%20still%20be%20possible https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014....) of arable land. [Global mean sea-level rise is expected to be between 0.30 and 0.65 m by 2100,](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-0121-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-0121-5) which might affect some Dutch towns during storms but is negligible. [As the number of storms are estimated to decrease, the threat vector is slightly increasing storm intensity.](https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3184/a-force-of-nature-hurricanes-in-a-changing-climate/#:~:text=While%20most%20models%20show%20either,greater%20chance%20of%20becoming%20stronger https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3184/a-force-of-nature-hurrica....) Humans can handle storms. We can rebuild homes, change where we settle and live, build with better materials and practises, and improve storm infrastructure and protections. In fact, as the temperature rises slightly, fewer people will die due to temperature extremes. This is because at present, many more people die due to exposure to low temperatures than high temperatures. We really have done a great disservice to a generation which believes the planet will be dead in a few decades.
  - throwanapple 2y ago
    Heat disproportionately kills young people: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/06/young-adults-heat-related-deaths-climate-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/06/young-adults...
aoanevdus 2y ago
The government does already give significant subsidies to parents. Direct tax credits and public schooling (aka free childcare) are two big ones. I’m not arguing that parents come out ahead economically or that the subsidies are bad (many argue they should be higher). Just pointing it out, if it helps with the guilt about your taxes. If we want to get all utilitarian about it, these things might be the most important: 1) Identifying the kids with the highest potential to contribute the most to society, and giving whatever support it takes. 2) Identifying which kids and parents are the most needy, who will benefit the most from support that enables them to have a good life. It’s probably not the average family in a developed country. If there’s someone who wants to raise my taxes to pay for that stuff, I’ll vote for them.
rtpg 2y ago
If you survey couples people say it's the money. There's no need to invent a whole narrative. People just say it's money (and stuff downstream of money like not being able to afford bigger housing to have a second kid rather than just one)
beebmam 2y ago
> It's actually that life is too good for childless people I'm not going to idly sit by and let people who have children take my hard earned money from me. If you think increasing taxes on those without children won't cause a massive retaliation by the men who are not able to find female mates to have children with, you are in for a massive surprise.
Tade0 2y ago
What you're saying is true, but I believe there are other factors at play as well. A significant part of the decrease in fertility rates comes from the sharp decline in teen pregnancy (counted as live births) over the past 30 years.
KetoManx64 2y ago
Great in the short term, really crappy and lonely in the long term. Couples like this get to enjoy themselves in themselves in their 30s, 40s, and 50s while their friends and families are investing in their children and grandchildren, and then then the DINKs retire and find that they don't have anyone around to spend time with. The friend's lives and social groups revolve around their children and grandchildren, and they don't have all that much in common with the childless couple that's in their 60s. Then they still have 20-30 years of life expectancy if the loneliness doesn't kill them first.
- NoLinkToMe 2y ago
  There's a source of truth there, but it's also easy to overstate and to show only this side of the story. My parents' lives revolved around their children too, and me and my brother are both working abroad at the moment (for work, love and adventure). My dad hasn't invested much in his social life, hobbies or skills, because he had a family. Divorced with kids out of the house and even out of the country, he's lonely. Meanwhile his childless brothers and sisters have much more active social lives. They're an active part of the family life as well, but it's not the only thing they have going for them.
mattkrause 2y ago
I’m skeptical that most daycare spending is driven by prestige-seeking or social pressure. Some undoubtedly is but the “standard” options are crazy expensive.
reverendsteveii 2y ago
>But with kids, that mostly goes out the window. That's what I mean when I say they should try making life better. Make it so that with kids I can have a house and family vacations and all the other things that my parents had access to. It's logically equivalent to say "life is harder with kids" or "life is easier without kids".

yieldcrv 2y ago

It was actually just last month that I saw one of these falling birthrate articles actually acknowledge that many people just don't want kids, it was in the NY Times too I'm glad we are finally getting representation on that instead of all these social science studies contorting themselves to come to a child-aspiring default that couples are somehow failing to reach https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/well/family/grandparent-grandchild-childfree.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/11/well/family/grandparent-g...

shiroiushi 2y ago
Even people who do want kids frequently don't want many of them. Even back in the old days, a lot of people didn't have kids; not everyone actually got married. But people who did get married had lots more kids, so they more than made up for all the people who didn't. (Don't forget, women frequently died in childbirth.) They didn't have reliable birth control, so women didn't have much choice about how many kids they'd have. These days, people can choose, and many women are happy to stop after 1 or 2 kids. Going through childbirth is, by many accounts, very difficult and not that much fun. All the pro-natalists (generally men) seem to completely dismiss actual women's feelings on this matter for some reason. Anyway, when you have a society where a bunch of people aren't having kids, and the ones who are are only having 1-2, sometimes 3, the overall average is going to be well under 2, which isn't enough to maintain the population level. As I've said many times before in these discussions online, societies need to come up with a new model, because obviously the old one isn't working, and it isn't going to come back.

cosmic_cheese 2y ago

There’s also some number of couples whose ideal is “no compromises” — that is, they hope to both provide the best for their kids and keep the nice house, vacations, comfortable retirement, etc. While this isn’t strictly impossible, it’s well beyond the reach of most, and so I suspect that this group mostly ends up never having kids.

dividefuel 2y ago

I agree with this as the main factor (over cost) for the falling birth rate. The opportunity cost of having children has never been higher: you give up leisure, hobbies, rest, social life, and income. Whether or not children is worth this cost is a personal thing, but it seems kinda obvious that as the cost increases, fewer will pay it.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> The opportunity cost of having children has never been higher: you give up leisure, hobbies, rest, social life, and income. Those things are given up because parenting-time is up 20-fold from a few generations ago. From the 1960s back, kids needed parents a few hours a week. But we reduced kids' roaming area from many sq mi to just their own property. At the same time, we instituted 24/7 adulting. Most of those hours are filled by parents. Kids have permanently lost daily hours of peer-driven growth - the ones where complex social interactions occurred naturally. Parents are now left with trying to construct artificial environments (leagues, programs) where maybe some of that can occur. Those efforts eat time and resources. And they're a poor substitute for the vital environments that kids once had for free. I spent 20x the time parenting that my mom did. For all of that, my kids had little-to-none of my growth opportunities.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  I think it's a mistake to project changes in US society onto that in Japan. Kids there are still largely free range.
  - askonomm 2y ago
    Yeah, also in Northern Europe. Here in Estonia kids as young as 5 years old even go to kindergarten on their own. They take a bus and are just fine. Seems to me the helicopter parenting is mostly a thing in the U.S.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

colechristensen 2y ago

The parents I've seen seem to spend every waking second doting on their children for at least a decade, which seems strange to me. This hovering "what can I do to satisfy your desires" literally just constantly (I've also seen people doing this with their dogs). Maybe I'm missing something or my sample size is skewed. The people I've seen doing this are also just exhausted, as they've said directly. It comes down to... the rent is too damn high. Young people without children willing to spend 1/3 to 1/2 of their total income servicing mortgages or rent drives the cost of living to ridiculous levels. People can't afford child care either by having family live close to high earners to help, or to hire child care. So it's unaffordable. There's nowhere to live for families in high density places (apartment buildings optimize for the highest rent tennants, 1,2 BR single people) Lots of people want children but can't engineer a life for themselves to have them without moving somewhere really far out and boring or being in the top 5% of earners, or living in squalor despite high incomes.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
>The parents I've seen seem to spend every waking second doting on their children for at least a decade, which seems strange to me. This hovering "what can I do to satisfy your desires" literally just constantly While some of it may be overbearing parenting due to wanting kids to compete or train for the future, there is also the fact that kids cannot be left alone, and there is no extended family supervision for them, and you are told you cannot let your kids sit in front of a screen all day. There’s no neighborhood chain of kids ranging from high school to toddler playing with each other, there is no outside time without adult supervision, an adult who is legally liable. And of course, cars. The environment is optimized for cars, not kids, so kids either sit inside alone or with 1 sibling or they need to be supervised. Not applicable to every single family, but many.
bobthepanda 2y ago
It really cannot be understated how few homes we have built since the Great Recession and the terrible impact that has had on COL. To give an idea of what it takes to solve a housing shortfall, Sweden successfully embarked on a million-homes program over a decade in the 70s when the population of Sweden was 7 million. NYC recently just celebrated the passage of a zoning reform that allows at most 80,000 new homes, and the population is 8.2 million.

nemo44x 2y ago

I enjoyed the DINK life for some time but eventually we decided to start a family and my only regret in life is we didn't start it sooner and have more kids. In the end all the fancy restaurants, nights out, fancy vacations with first class airfare, etc were nice in some ways but pretty vapid and unimportant when looking back. I won't value those years very much compared to the years with children in the house. The energy kids bring into a home and the meaningfulness of their existence is just incomparable in my experience. But I get it, and the idea of kids was scary at one time, but it turns out they're pretty easy all things considered. Lots of talk of "sacrifice" between friends back then but as it turns out you're trading something of little value for something of immense value. But to each their own!

hanslovsky 2y ago
I have the sentiment. would have loved to have kids earlier, but I also was not in the position at an earlier age, relationship wise. Growing up in Germany, having kids in your 20s was almost frowned upon. what a terrible societal development!
thinkingtoilet 2y ago
Just to provide a counter point you don't hear. I have two kids and very much wish I didn't. I love my kids. I sacrifice for them. There are many moments of great joy. However, I don't really have a life any more. I would rather spend my time traveling, visiting friends, playing music. I would rather have more money. I would rather be healthier. I would rather have time for my hobbies. Being a good parent is a lot and nearly all consuming. I feel like a lot of people feel like I do but are too decent to say it out loud.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  that's sad (I don't mean that in a mean way) yeah, there are times when I've felt like that, but they're pretty fleeting at what age did you start a family? I think one of the reasons people should start a family a bit later (early thirties maybe) is so that they have the opportunity to experience/enjoy those things without kids (and not have to wait until the kids are all grown up and then they're in their 50s and it's just not the same as the stuff you can do in your 20s).

lotsofpulp 2y ago

Excellent comment. All the evidences suggests to me that removing Social Security/Medicare and other wealth transfers from young to old are actually the only thing that might incentivize sufficient people to have sufficient kids to meet replacement TFR AND raise the kids into the type of adults you want. The reasoning behind this is even with the best quality of life, many women will have 2 children, but insufficient women will have 3 or more children such that it offsets the number of women who have 0 or 1 child. Those with zero children really drag the average down, and if it is because partnering with a certain portion of the population is simply not worth it, then government efforts on improving quality of life via work and benefit policies are not going to bump TFR to replacement rate.

carlosjobim 2y ago
Humanity has never seen such an extreme wealth transfer from young to old as what is going on in the industrialized world right now. Pensions: Wealth transfer from young to old. Taxes: Wealth transfer from young to old. Socialized health care: Wealth transfer from young to old. Rent: Wealth transfer from young to old. Inflation: Wealth transfer from young to old (who owns the real estate?) Capitalism: Wealth transfer from young to old (who owns the stocks?) National debt: Wealth transfer from young to old. It seems like all different systems at work in industrialized nations has the single goal of extracting all productivity from young workers and giving it to the current generation of elderly. Even the ideologies who on the face are against each other (socialism vs capitalism) both work mainly to reap everything form the young to give to the old.

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hiAndrewQuinn 2y ago

I'll gladly volunteer to be the first to say "Fuck those societal expectations, that's insane." You don't owe your children much more than food, love and a roof over their head. Sure, you might want to give them the world, but don't listen to anyone telling you that's the expectation - that's a fast track to resentment.

a1exyz 2y ago
I agree and think that this is a huge growing cultural expectation - "you have to live for your children". I don't think it used to be the case. Well OK sure I get that that would be good for kids but you're also gonna limit the number of parents if that's the new normal.
- orangecat 2y ago
  Well OK sure I get that that would be good for kids And past a certain point it's not.
  - WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
    >> Well OK sure I get that that would be good for kids > And past a certain point it's not. Where do you estimate that point is? What harm do you believe lies past it?
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Parent of small kids here. Tricky to estimate, because the desire to not have your kids be worse off because you didn't do enough, and the desire for them to have it better than you, are strong and not really bounded. However, the idea of parents giving 100% of themselves to the children is also an unsustainable one, and fundamentally horrifying one - if everyone things this way, generation by generation, then this robs existence from any meaning. It's admitting that all the good and nice things in the world, all that separates us from other animals, are all accidents, all made by people who weren't good enough at giving their children their best, and instead wasted their time on stuff like arts and sciences. So I think there must be a point somewhere. And perhaps a hint of that is the observation that kids are better off with happy parents than with unhappy ones.

wkat4242 2y ago

Don't feel bad. It's good for the planet and society to reduce the population somewhat. It can't keep growing forever. All the major problems we have are a result of it. Climate change, housing shortage, resource conflicts etc. The demographic problems during a decline are only temporary. If the world had only 1 billion people it would be a lot easier. The whole idea that humanity would go extinct is ridiculous. And humanity is still growing anyway due to the many countries that don't have falling birth rates. There's always people wanting to have kids. This is just society adjusting itself to the current overpopulation.

imetatroll 2y ago

I entirely agree. And when you lather on the tidal wave of endless "entertainment" and options available to most people they end up framing everything in their minds as "having fun" vs "having kids". I also know many women who say they don't want to "do that to their bodies" so ... where is this all going. And honestly I agree with the "if you are single you should pay more taxes" as a motivator to either get you to have your own kids or to simply ease the burden of those who are actually making humanity move forward but as a parent I am a bit biased here. It should be a significant amount.

talldayo 2y ago
There are already taxes subsidies for couples and children - that's plenty enough incentive for wealthy families that can support kids. Families that cannot afford to feed or house children should in no way be penalized for refusing to start a family in their present situation.
- missedthecue 2y ago
  The reality is the public pensions and healthcare implode without much higher taxes or much higher birth rates. Like the Italian president told his people a few years, if we want things to stay the same, things are going to have to change.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Things aren't going to change. America just let private wealth run rampant over everything that matters and now wants to usher in an administration that (supposedly) wouldn't touch your civil liberties with a 50 foot pole. Trump says he won't even commit to banning abortion (sounds about right for a guy that's probably paid for dozens of 'em). So... how are things going to "have to change" if you can't threaten childless couples and you can't redistribute the wealth to people that do want kids? Continually fearmonger mandatory birthing policies without actually implementing them just to get a rise out of your citizens? It's nonsense, and if America is given a choice between "fucking over wealthy people" and "having tons of kids to staff McDonalds at minimum wage" I can tell you offhand which one 99% of citizens will pick. We're already halfway there given how far China has surpassed the US in places - today's Americans hate capitalism so much they're content watching their country suffer until businesses get the message.

bamboozled 2y ago

Many young people I know see nothing being done about climate change and make their choice right there. These are also smart, educated well-off types. The level of suffering we can expect isn't something they want to introduce children into. I find it surprising this is somehow difficult for governments to grok.

Gareth321 2y ago
I doubt it will make a difference but climate change isn't expected to cause great suffering. Compared to great filter events, climate change doesn't even register. Estimates are of a rise of [2-4 degrees centigrade by 2100.](https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/climatechange/science#:~:text=Global%20temperature%20is%20projected%20to,7.2%20degrees%20Fahrenheit\)%20by%202100 https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/climatechange/science#:~:text=Glob....) This will likely result in an [increase](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014014/meta#:~:text=Regionally%2C%20it%20is%20likely%20that,increases%20may%20still%20be%20possible https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/6/1/014....) of arable land. [Global mean sea-level rise is expected to be between 0.30 and 0.65 m by 2100,](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-0121-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-020-0121-5) which might affect some Dutch towns during storms but is negligible. [As the number of storms are estimated to decrease, the threat vector is slightly increasing storm intensity.](https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3184/a-force-of-nature-hurricanes-in-a-changing-climate/#:~:text=While%20most%20models%20show%20either,greater%20chance%20of%20becoming%20stronger https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3184/a-force-of-nature-hurrica....) Humans can handle storms. We can rebuild homes, change where we settle and live, build with better materials and practises, and improve storm infrastructure and protections. In fact, as the temperature rises slightly, fewer people will die due to temperature extremes. This is because at present, many more people die due to exposure to low temperatures than high temperatures. We really have done a great disservice to a generation which believes the planet will be dead in a few decades.
- throwanapple 2y ago
  Heat disproportionately kills young people: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/06/young-adults-heat-related-deaths-climate-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/06/young-adults...

aoanevdus 2y ago

The government does already give significant subsidies to parents. Direct tax credits and public schooling (aka free childcare) are two big ones. I’m not arguing that parents come out ahead economically or that the subsidies are bad (many argue they should be higher). Just pointing it out, if it helps with the guilt about your taxes. If we want to get all utilitarian about it, these things might be the most important: 1) Identifying the kids with the highest potential to contribute the most to society, and giving whatever support it takes. 2) Identifying which kids and parents are the most needy, who will benefit the most from support that enables them to have a good life. It’s probably not the average family in a developed country. If there’s someone who wants to raise my taxes to pay for that stuff, I’ll vote for them.

rtpg 2y ago

If you survey couples people say it's the money. There's no need to invent a whole narrative. People just say it's money (and stuff downstream of money like not being able to afford bigger housing to have a second kid rather than just one)

beebmam 2y ago

> It's actually that life is too good for childless people I'm not going to idly sit by and let people who have children take my hard earned money from me. If you think increasing taxes on those without children won't cause a massive retaliation by the men who are not able to find female mates to have children with, you are in for a massive surprise.

Tade0 2y ago

What you're saying is true, but I believe there are other factors at play as well. A significant part of the decrease in fertility rates comes from the sharp decline in teen pregnancy (counted as live births) over the past 30 years.

KetoManx64 2y ago

Great in the short term, really crappy and lonely in the long term. Couples like this get to enjoy themselves in themselves in their 30s, 40s, and 50s while their friends and families are investing in their children and grandchildren, and then then the DINKs retire and find that they don't have anyone around to spend time with. The friend's lives and social groups revolve around their children and grandchildren, and they don't have all that much in common with the childless couple that's in their 60s. Then they still have 20-30 years of life expectancy if the loneliness doesn't kill them first.

NoLinkToMe 2y ago
There's a source of truth there, but it's also easy to overstate and to show only this side of the story. My parents' lives revolved around their children too, and me and my brother are both working abroad at the moment (for work, love and adventure). My dad hasn't invested much in his social life, hobbies or skills, because he had a family. Divorced with kids out of the house and even out of the country, he's lonely. Meanwhile his childless brothers and sisters have much more active social lives. They're an active part of the family life as well, but it's not the only thing they have going for them.

mattkrause 2y ago

I’m skeptical that most daycare spending is driven by prestige-seeking or social pressure. Some undoubtedly is but the “standard” options are crazy expensive.

reverendsteveii 2y ago

>But with kids, that mostly goes out the window. That's what I mean when I say they should try making life better. Make it so that with kids I can have a house and family vacations and all the other things that my parents had access to. It's logically equivalent to say "life is harder with kids" or "life is easier without kids".