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I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely was and is for me. At the same

I have four children. I have never regretted it or wished for a different path. I know it isn't for everyone, but it absolutely was and is for me. At the same time I do think articles like this should be countered with the reality that many fathers aren't overwhelmed with waves of love or "surreal magnificence". With each of my children being born the primary emotions I could point to were dread and anxiety. The sudden overwhelming obligation to provide care, comfort and security for such a vulnerable human for decades encompasses your being. One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak. Having children is not only an astronomical expense -- every single element of life is dramatically more expensive, made much worse with the housing crisis occurring in many Western nations -- a couple is often entirely on their own. There are no respites or breaks. And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury, the social norms for what a parent needs to do to be proper climb ever higher.

apwell23 2y ago
> One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak. It probably true but even the well of who can afford to buy the village aren't having kids. I think it has more to do with 1. cultural acceptance and lack of strict cultural pressure to have kids. Its unimaginable in India to not have kids by choice. Its not a choice at all unless you want to be pariah. 2. Availability of affordable widespread recreation that will keep you occupied. Affordability of lots of on demand TV, dining out, live music, internet, hobbies, travel ect.
- jebarker 2y ago
  I also think we've become more self-obsessed and the idea that we might need to sacrifice time spent on ourselves scares us.
zemvpferreira 2y ago
I’m 40, rich, coupled, live next door to my parents and close to my inlaws, have plenty of free time. I have no kids and no desire to have kids. My girlfriend is the same and plenty of our friends too. I’m very happy for people who have children and love them to bits, but many of just don’t want to.
- borski 2y ago
  And there isn’t anything wrong with that at all. Kids are, in my opinion, literally the only life choice you can’t walk away from having made. That is extremely high stakes, and not everyone has the appetite for it or desire to engage in it. That doesn’t make anyone who has kids or wants to have kids better or worse. Plenty of people have kids and should not have, and they end up neglecting their kids or abusing them. Have kids if you want to. Don’t if you don’t. Just realize that if you wait too long to make a choice, those options become much more limited and lean much more toward not having them. And if you make the choice without thinking, you’re just gambling, but you’re gambling with someone’s life, not to mention your own. If it sounds scary… good. That means you’re thinking about it. You just have to decide if you want to do this particularly scary thing, and if the potential reward outweighs the risk. And, I think it’s important to be okay with that choice changing in either direction. My wife didn’t want kids, and that opinion has changed, through no pushing of my own. (The proverbial you, not you specifically, since it sounds like you’ve decided)
selectodude 2y ago
> One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak. Having children is not only an astronomical expense -- every single element of life is dramatically more expensive, made much worse with the housing crisis occurring in many Western nations -- a couple is often entirely on their own. There are no respites or breaks. It’s the opportunity cost of having children. When you’re poor, it’s not changing what you can do with your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you’re wealthy, you can afford to bring them with you, or better, pay somebody to watch them while you’re gone. The well-off middle class needs to weigh completely changing their lives.
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  > When you’re poor, it’s not changing what you can do with your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you're poor and child-less, you can still sleep in on weekends, watch Netflix/game all day/night or whatever other (cheap) hobby you have. It's even possible to do a decent amount of travelling on a very tight budget these days (low-cost airlines, couchsurfing...). All things considered, today is not a bad time to be a poor person in terms of being able to have fun. I think even for middle class, the main cost is actually the time rather than the monetary cost. But I do agree that opportunity cost is the right framing.
  - bearincar 2y ago
    [dead]
  - anthonypasq 2y ago
    is just so absolutely bizarre to me as a 28 year old childless man who intends to have kids that gaming could possibly be something that you would trade vs raising a literal human child who is a genetic copy of you and the person you love most in your life
    - marssaxman 2y ago
      Human beings vary in all kinds of ways, more than we generally expect, right down to the nature of our most fundamental fears and desires. Not everyone wants to have children, in the way that you do, and some people clearly want not to. I doubt that anyone would prefer gaming to children because they hold gaming in the kind of profound esteem you feel for the task of "raising a literal human child"; more likely, they simply don't feel much of anything about having kids, or perhaps they feel some aversion. It's not hard for even a comparatively trivial activity you enjoy to feel more appealing than an alternative you don't actually desire.
627467 2y ago
And you don't think the destruction of the village and sharp decline in birth rate feed of each other? Individuals have outsourced so much to abstract "institutions" that they can't see alternatives whatever precarious and worsening services these institutions provide.
- IgorPartola 2y ago
  No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to move up and down the social ladder. Basically it’s not really like the whole village raised your kid before, that’s more of a romanticized version. What happened was that your extended family helped because you lived with them for your entire life. So you have a kid, your sister in law watches them along with your mother while you work. Where do you work? Well that’s wherever your family works. If you are born into a farm, you are a farmer. If your family is blacksmiths, you’ll be a smith. Or a dung sifter, etc. If you can’t do it, maybe your farmer family sends you to apprentice with the local smith. But you rarely get a choice in what you do, where you live, etc. Moreover, if you don’t like your family/they don’t like you: tough. You might hate your sister in law but who else will watch your kid while you sift dung? What has changed is that we have the free market. Your can move out, have your own career and hire someone to care for your kids while you work. You no longer have access to “free” childcare but you have access to the job market instead. Want to leave the farm and move to the big city to become a jewelry maker? Go for it. But you won’t have much support to start a family. You are paying for free choice.
  - llm_nerd 2y ago
    "The village" isn't limited to some pioneer dung sifter living seven generations to a hovel. Also absolutely bizarre how so many people so desperately want to make this an economic thing. The village referred to the notion that children were viewed as important to the whole. The whole country, the whole province, the whole village, the whole neighbourhood, the whole family. Everyone cared about and contributed to the raising of children. In my childhood -- and at this point the village was already declining -- I had a number of friend families that were like second, third and fourth families where I could stayover for dinner whenever I wanted, they watched out for me, etc. There were many times where I spent nights at aunts with my cousins, or at grandparents. Culturally this is far less common. We all move hundreds of kilometers apart. Sometimes for careers, more often because you're a loser if you stay near where you grew up. Many/most younger people have little relation with cousins or aunts or uncles. Grandparents now move to Arizona and ask for pictures occasionally. People have an antagonistic attitude towards other people's kids as a selfish trifle that are just a nuisance for everyone else. No, hiring a nanny isn't equivalent and doesn't invalidate this.
wooque 2y ago
Birth rates plummeted even in Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are polar opposite of the West, so I'd say loss of "village" is tiny part of the problem.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  It's possible for different influences to play a part in different countries and cultures. Further, there is a remarkable scale difference. The high survivability of children now means that having large numbers of children dropped everywhere. You don't need to have "extras". The problem is when the number drops too much. It did in Iran due to literal government influence, and is quickly turning back to replacement level. Saudi Arabia is above replacement level. That is very different than Canada (1.33) or South Korea (0.88), or Switzerland (1.39). The scale is dramatically different.
- whycome 2y ago
  I’m not sure I’d consider Iran or Saudi Arabia as polar opposites to the west. Or at least not in the aspects related to kids.
DAGdug 2y ago
“ And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury” I never quite understood this. Who exactly will pay into social security to benefit the next crop of retirees that seem to think it’s selfish to have kids?
- nosefurhairdo 2y ago
  Many people think overpopulation is a legitimate concern. I suspect the argument would be "who cares about social security if we kill the planet" (or something along those lines). Not my view, just suggesting who might believe the "children as selfish luxury" line.
- thefz 2y ago
  Social security is well failed in my country, we are paying both for the retirees and for our future selves. So if tomorrow ends up like children of men, sure, no problem.
- rangestransform 2y ago
  Immigrants, even better that their source country paid for their natal care and education rather than us
  - DAGdug 2y ago
    That’s fine, but if the immigrants move from the developing to the developed world, that incurs a massive increase in their carbon footprint.
    - rangestransform 2y ago
      it's better than paying for natal care and education for a local-born child who will still have a high carbon footprint, and might also not be as productive as the immigrant
      - DAGdug 2y ago
        And one could argue that: 1. Immigrants typically have higher TFRs that within years wipes out the gains you allude to 2. Productivity depends on how skilled the immigrants are; much of Europe has a large chunk of immigrants with lower productivity than the native born. Anyway, this is a low signal discussion on both sides; this is my last comment on this matter
anon291 2y ago
We don't have a village because no one has kids. The parents I know who are best supported are ones who have tons of siblings.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  True. Those with large numbers of kids tend to have a family network of mutual support.
  - anon291 2y ago
    My parents had less kids due to circumstances (age + immigration). But they had so many siblings that they had so much help compared to my brother and I. Luckily we both have three and we at least want more (they might be aging out... Maybe they'll have one more). Kids are so much fine and they love each other too. It's amazing
llm_trw 2y ago
Do you think this could be because you have so many children? Anecdotally the more kids in a family the more neglected the child. I can't imagine having more than one child a decade and raising them well.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  I was one of 5. I was not neglected. I am a horrible person, though, so there's that.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    Your parents by definition will only be able to spend 20% of the time on you that they could on a single child if they didn't neglect the others. Seeing children with multiple siblings with less than 8 year difference between them vs single children is shocking just how differently kids are treated. This is the most accurate but least factual description of what it looks like from the outside when a family keeps adding kids as fast as they can https://malcolminthemiddle.fandom.com/wiki/Flashback https://malcolminthemiddle.fandom.com/wiki/Flashback
    - beachtaxidriver 2y ago
      I see your point. But I think you may be taking it to extremes. A parent can snuggle multiple kids at once, read to multiple kids at once, take multiple kids to the zoo at once, etc. Moreover siblings have their own rich relationships. Having closely spaced siblings is pretty normal.
      - llm_trw 2y ago
        In the west in the year of our lord 1955. And in the year of our lord 2025 it's normal not to have kids in the west. In most of the rest of the world neither of those things were normal. Which is the point. The west is weird when it comes to raising children and has been uniquely bad at it for over 80 years which happens to be living memory for pretty much everyone on here.
WalterBright 2y ago
Delaying having children until ones' 30s also is a problem. After 30, fertility rates decline, and birth defects increase. You can't have a lot of children after 30, either.
- vardump 2y ago
  I think steeper decline is at about 37ish years for women. There's also some deterioration as men age, but it's less obvious. Some say the combined age should not be over 80. Shrug. (Should be obvious fertility varies greatly between individuals.)
baxtr 2y ago
Agree 100%. People say it’s the cost. But what’s way worse is the effort and time you need to spend for every child. A normal couple, most often with both having to work, will be at their limits to provide for more than 1 child - constantly. A couple can’t replace the village unless they have tons of money.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  I am lucky that I do consulting through my own company, setting my own schedule and availability. It would be impossible otherwise. Just as one small example, daycares/schools will call for you to pickup your kid -- blowing up your day -- at the slightest indication of illness. With four kids going to school, this means two to six+ times a month your day is going to be completely blown up at any moment. I'm not complaining (though when I was a kid if you had a bit of a stomach ache you chilled in the nurse's office for a bit and 9 times out of 10 go back to class), but the average person cannot accommodate this without quickly finding themselves unemployed. This is just one of a million cases where two working parents and few or no supports leave you in a precarious situation.
  - baxtr 2y ago
    True that things have changed on the child side as well. I remember being by myself for long stretches on any day. Parents today not only have lost the village but are also expected to be with their children more.
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    I remember the feeling of relief when my kids left daycare for the last time (I just have two, though). Partly because the massive reduction in cost, and partly because of the ease in scheduling my day. And it's just gotten better as they've grown a bit older. Now in middle school, they get themselves going in the morning and then get home in the afternoon just before 5pm. I've pretty much forgotten all the scheduling we had to do around nap times, daycare, etc. I got lucky in a sense, when covid came along and sent me home permanently, it makes dealing with kids so much simpler. My wife and I both work from home now, and schedules are a breeze.
crystal_revenge 2y ago
As the father of a teenager, I would also add: take parenting "wisdom" from new parents with the same grain of salt you would career advice from someone who just landed their first job. I personally found the complexities of parenting and, even more importantly, family life, don't really start to emerge until after the first few years. Talk to divorced parents of older children about the "Surreal Magnificence" of parenting and you'll likely get a hearty chuckle out of them.
- deanCommie 2y ago
  To put a counter-point on your counter-point: * Divorced parents aren't representative experiences for most parents. (The oft-used statistics that >50% of marriages end in divorce miss that those with one divorce often end up with N divorces. Aka most PEOPLE, and most COUPLES, do NOT end up divorced) * The job of a parent is to raise an adult. There are certainly those that become enamored with the idea of parenting a baby/toddler/child and are unprepared for the complicated job ahead. But there are also those that seem to think their job ends as soon as the child is legally an adult. Or those that are all too happy to throw away their decade plus of investment because their teenager going through absolutely normal hormonal chaos are suddenly disrespectful to them. * In essence, I'm trying to say that divorce parents of older children are just as much full of shit as the new parents in terms of giving someone advice.
  - elijaht 2y ago
    Some brief googling suggests that 41% of first marriages end in divorce (ex. https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/ https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/). Obviously not >50%, but certainly in the neighborhood
    - deanCommie 2y ago
      I'd be curious how much of this changes once you account for a few basic fundamental things like: * Being over 25 * Having a college degree. The people who worry about marriage because of these stats are typically in this category. I bet just by accounting for these 2 points, the numbers would plummet to the 20s if not teens.
throwaway2037 2y ago
Great post, until this: > And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury What country / culture? Surely, no one is saying that in any country that I know well.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  In much of the West the ability to have children is economically or logistically (e.g. a career that would fall apart if they had kids) out of reach for many [1], leading many to perceive it as a selfish luxury. A "must be nice" kind of thing. e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=children+a+luxury+item https://www.google.com/search?q=children+a+luxury+item With this comes the perspective that every downside parents enjoy is earned if not poetically satisfying. It is amazing how absolutely without sympathy -- instead holding smug satisfaction -- people are if a parent faces obstacles. [1] Obviously there are exceptions and different situations exist in different cultures and socioeconomic settings.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    Uh what? Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece: Absolutely false. Same in Japan, Korea, Taiwan. Edit I forgot: ALL of Latin America: False, children are treated as a blessing!
ToDougie 2y ago
> a couple is often entirely on their own. Yeah. This has been the worst part. Neither of our parents feel the need to help with their TIME, but they will sporadically send us money after making us feel bad about asking. Meanwhile they had all kinds of help from relatives, in time, sweat, and money. Part of the problem is that you don't get your full Social Security benefits until age 70, so for the one grandparent that is still working, they literally do not have the time to help. If they wanted to retire early, they would have to forgo what they perceive as critical $. Alternatively, they could sell their multi-million dollar home and downsize, but their egos could never handle that.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
I wish more of the country had tech work. I shouldn't have to move away from my village across the country to one of a handful of tech hubs. Incentivize remote work so we can spread out into these cheaper and under served communities.

apwell23 2y ago

> One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak. It probably true but even the well of who can afford to buy the village aren't having kids. I think it has more to do with 1. cultural acceptance and lack of strict cultural pressure to have kids. Its unimaginable in India to not have kids by choice. Its not a choice at all unless you want to be pariah. 2. Availability of affordable widespread recreation that will keep you occupied. Affordability of lots of on demand TV, dining out, live music, internet, hobbies, travel ect.

jebarker 2y ago
I also think we've become more self-obsessed and the idea that we might need to sacrifice time spent on ourselves scares us.

zemvpferreira 2y ago

I’m 40, rich, coupled, live next door to my parents and close to my inlaws, have plenty of free time. I have no kids and no desire to have kids. My girlfriend is the same and plenty of our friends too. I’m very happy for people who have children and love them to bits, but many of just don’t want to.

borski 2y ago
And there isn’t anything wrong with that at all. Kids are, in my opinion, literally the only life choice you can’t walk away from having made. That is extremely high stakes, and not everyone has the appetite for it or desire to engage in it. That doesn’t make anyone who has kids or wants to have kids better or worse. Plenty of people have kids and should not have, and they end up neglecting their kids or abusing them. Have kids if you want to. Don’t if you don’t. Just realize that if you wait too long to make a choice, those options become much more limited and lean much more toward not having them. And if you make the choice without thinking, you’re just gambling, but you’re gambling with someone’s life, not to mention your own. If it sounds scary… good. That means you’re thinking about it. You just have to decide if you want to do this particularly scary thing, and if the potential reward outweighs the risk. And, I think it’s important to be okay with that choice changing in either direction. My wife didn’t want kids, and that opinion has changed, through no pushing of my own. (The proverbial you, not you specifically, since it sounds like you’ve decided)

selectodude 2y ago

> One of the reasons birthrates have plummeted in the West, and sentiments about having children have dropped, is that we have no "village", so to speak. Having children is not only an astronomical expense -- every single element of life is dramatically more expensive, made much worse with the housing crisis occurring in many Western nations -- a couple is often entirely on their own. There are no respites or breaks. It’s the opportunity cost of having children. When you’re poor, it’s not changing what you can do with your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you’re wealthy, you can afford to bring them with you, or better, pay somebody to watch them while you’re gone. The well-off middle class needs to weigh completely changing their lives.

The_Colonel 2y ago
> When you’re poor, it’s not changing what you can do with your life. You were never able to go to dinner or on vacation. When you're poor and child-less, you can still sleep in on weekends, watch Netflix/game all day/night or whatever other (cheap) hobby you have. It's even possible to do a decent amount of travelling on a very tight budget these days (low-cost airlines, couchsurfing...). All things considered, today is not a bad time to be a poor person in terms of being able to have fun. I think even for middle class, the main cost is actually the time rather than the monetary cost. But I do agree that opportunity cost is the right framing.
- bearincar 2y ago
  [dead]
- anthonypasq 2y ago
  is just so absolutely bizarre to me as a 28 year old childless man who intends to have kids that gaming could possibly be something that you would trade vs raising a literal human child who is a genetic copy of you and the person you love most in your life
  - marssaxman 2y ago
    Human beings vary in all kinds of ways, more than we generally expect, right down to the nature of our most fundamental fears and desires. Not everyone wants to have children, in the way that you do, and some people clearly want not to. I doubt that anyone would prefer gaming to children because they hold gaming in the kind of profound esteem you feel for the task of "raising a literal human child"; more likely, they simply don't feel much of anything about having kids, or perhaps they feel some aversion. It's not hard for even a comparatively trivial activity you enjoy to feel more appealing than an alternative you don't actually desire.

627467 2y ago

And you don't think the destruction of the village and sharp decline in birth rate feed of each other? Individuals have outsourced so much to abstract "institutions" that they can't see alternatives whatever precarious and worsening services these institutions provide.

IgorPartola 2y ago
No. The reason why is because we have opportunities to move up and down the social ladder. Basically it’s not really like the whole village raised your kid before, that’s more of a romanticized version. What happened was that your extended family helped because you lived with them for your entire life. So you have a kid, your sister in law watches them along with your mother while you work. Where do you work? Well that’s wherever your family works. If you are born into a farm, you are a farmer. If your family is blacksmiths, you’ll be a smith. Or a dung sifter, etc. If you can’t do it, maybe your farmer family sends you to apprentice with the local smith. But you rarely get a choice in what you do, where you live, etc. Moreover, if you don’t like your family/they don’t like you: tough. You might hate your sister in law but who else will watch your kid while you sift dung? What has changed is that we have the free market. Your can move out, have your own career and hire someone to care for your kids while you work. You no longer have access to “free” childcare but you have access to the job market instead. Want to leave the farm and move to the big city to become a jewelry maker? Go for it. But you won’t have much support to start a family. You are paying for free choice.
- llm_nerd 2y ago
  "The village" isn't limited to some pioneer dung sifter living seven generations to a hovel. Also absolutely bizarre how so many people so desperately want to make this an economic thing. The village referred to the notion that children were viewed as important to the whole. The whole country, the whole province, the whole village, the whole neighbourhood, the whole family. Everyone cared about and contributed to the raising of children. In my childhood -- and at this point the village was already declining -- I had a number of friend families that were like second, third and fourth families where I could stayover for dinner whenever I wanted, they watched out for me, etc. There were many times where I spent nights at aunts with my cousins, or at grandparents. Culturally this is far less common. We all move hundreds of kilometers apart. Sometimes for careers, more often because you're a loser if you stay near where you grew up. Many/most younger people have little relation with cousins or aunts or uncles. Grandparents now move to Arizona and ask for pictures occasionally. People have an antagonistic attitude towards other people's kids as a selfish trifle that are just a nuisance for everyone else. No, hiring a nanny isn't equivalent and doesn't invalidate this.

wooque 2y ago

Birth rates plummeted even in Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are polar opposite of the West, so I'd say loss of "village" is tiny part of the problem.

llm_nerd 2y ago
It's possible for different influences to play a part in different countries and cultures. Further, there is a remarkable scale difference. The high survivability of children now means that having large numbers of children dropped everywhere. You don't need to have "extras". The problem is when the number drops too much. It did in Iran due to literal government influence, and is quickly turning back to replacement level. Saudi Arabia is above replacement level. That is very different than Canada (1.33) or South Korea (0.88), or Switzerland (1.39). The scale is dramatically different.
whycome 2y ago
I’m not sure I’d consider Iran or Saudi Arabia as polar opposites to the west. Or at least not in the aspects related to kids.

DAGdug 2y ago

“ And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury” I never quite understood this. Who exactly will pay into social security to benefit the next crop of retirees that seem to think it’s selfish to have kids?

nosefurhairdo 2y ago
Many people think overpopulation is a legitimate concern. I suspect the argument would be "who cares about social security if we kill the planet" (or something along those lines). Not my view, just suggesting who might believe the "children as selfish luxury" line.
thefz 2y ago
Social security is well failed in my country, we are paying both for the retirees and for our future selves. So if tomorrow ends up like children of men, sure, no problem.
rangestransform 2y ago
Immigrants, even better that their source country paid for their natal care and education rather than us
- DAGdug 2y ago
  That’s fine, but if the immigrants move from the developing to the developed world, that incurs a massive increase in their carbon footprint.
  - rangestransform 2y ago
    it's better than paying for natal care and education for a local-born child who will still have a high carbon footprint, and might also not be as productive as the immigrant
    - DAGdug 2y ago
      And one could argue that: 1. Immigrants typically have higher TFRs that within years wipes out the gains you allude to 2. Productivity depends on how skilled the immigrants are; much of Europe has a large chunk of immigrants with lower productivity than the native born. Anyway, this is a low signal discussion on both sides; this is my last comment on this matter

anon291 2y ago

We don't have a village because no one has kids. The parents I know who are best supported are ones who have tons of siblings.

WalterBright 2y ago
True. Those with large numbers of kids tend to have a family network of mutual support.
- anon291 2y ago
  My parents had less kids due to circumstances (age + immigration). But they had so many siblings that they had so much help compared to my brother and I. Luckily we both have three and we at least want more (they might be aging out... Maybe they'll have one more). Kids are so much fine and they love each other too. It's amazing

llm_trw 2y ago

Do you think this could be because you have so many children? Anecdotally the more kids in a family the more neglected the child. I can't imagine having more than one child a decade and raising them well.

WalterBright 2y ago
I was one of 5. I was not neglected. I am a horrible person, though, so there's that.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  Your parents by definition will only be able to spend 20% of the time on you that they could on a single child if they didn't neglect the others. Seeing children with multiple siblings with less than 8 year difference between them vs single children is shocking just how differently kids are treated. This is the most accurate but least factual description of what it looks like from the outside when a family keeps adding kids as fast as they can https://malcolminthemiddle.fandom.com/wiki/Flashback https://malcolminthemiddle.fandom.com/wiki/Flashback
  - beachtaxidriver 2y ago
    I see your point. But I think you may be taking it to extremes. A parent can snuggle multiple kids at once, read to multiple kids at once, take multiple kids to the zoo at once, etc. Moreover siblings have their own rich relationships. Having closely spaced siblings is pretty normal.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      In the west in the year of our lord 1955. And in the year of our lord 2025 it's normal not to have kids in the west. In most of the rest of the world neither of those things were normal. Which is the point. The west is weird when it comes to raising children and has been uniquely bad at it for over 80 years which happens to be living memory for pretty much everyone on here.

WalterBright 2y ago

Delaying having children until ones' 30s also is a problem. After 30, fertility rates decline, and birth defects increase. You can't have a lot of children after 30, either.

vardump 2y ago
I think steeper decline is at about 37ish years for women. There's also some deterioration as men age, but it's less obvious. Some say the combined age should not be over 80. Shrug. (Should be obvious fertility varies greatly between individuals.)

baxtr 2y ago

Agree 100%. People say it’s the cost. But what’s way worse is the effort and time you need to spend for every child. A normal couple, most often with both having to work, will be at their limits to provide for more than 1 child - constantly. A couple can’t replace the village unless they have tons of money.

llm_nerd 2y ago
I am lucky that I do consulting through my own company, setting my own schedule and availability. It would be impossible otherwise. Just as one small example, daycares/schools will call for you to pickup your kid -- blowing up your day -- at the slightest indication of illness. With four kids going to school, this means two to six+ times a month your day is going to be completely blown up at any moment. I'm not complaining (though when I was a kid if you had a bit of a stomach ache you chilled in the nurse's office for a bit and 9 times out of 10 go back to class), but the average person cannot accommodate this without quickly finding themselves unemployed. This is just one of a million cases where two working parents and few or no supports leave you in a precarious situation.
- baxtr 2y ago
  True that things have changed on the child side as well. I remember being by myself for long stretches on any day. Parents today not only have lost the village but are also expected to be with their children more.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  I remember the feeling of relief when my kids left daycare for the last time (I just have two, though). Partly because the massive reduction in cost, and partly because of the ease in scheduling my day. And it's just gotten better as they've grown a bit older. Now in middle school, they get themselves going in the morning and then get home in the afternoon just before 5pm. I've pretty much forgotten all the scheduling we had to do around nap times, daycare, etc. I got lucky in a sense, when covid came along and sent me home permanently, it makes dealing with kids so much simpler. My wife and I both work from home now, and schedules are a breeze.

crystal_revenge 2y ago

As the father of a teenager, I would also add: take parenting "wisdom" from new parents with the same grain of salt you would career advice from someone who just landed their first job. I personally found the complexities of parenting and, even more importantly, family life, don't really start to emerge until after the first few years. Talk to divorced parents of older children about the "Surreal Magnificence" of parenting and you'll likely get a hearty chuckle out of them.

deanCommie 2y ago
To put a counter-point on your counter-point: * Divorced parents aren't representative experiences for most parents. (The oft-used statistics that >50% of marriages end in divorce miss that those with one divorce often end up with N divorces. Aka most PEOPLE, and most COUPLES, do NOT end up divorced) * The job of a parent is to raise an adult. There are certainly those that become enamored with the idea of parenting a baby/toddler/child and are unprepared for the complicated job ahead. But there are also those that seem to think their job ends as soon as the child is legally an adult. Or those that are all too happy to throw away their decade plus of investment because their teenager going through absolutely normal hormonal chaos are suddenly disrespectful to them. * In essence, I'm trying to say that divorce parents of older children are just as much full of shit as the new parents in terms of giving someone advice.
- elijaht 2y ago
  Some brief googling suggests that 41% of first marriages end in divorce (ex. https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/ https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/). Obviously not >50%, but certainly in the neighborhood
  - deanCommie 2y ago
    I'd be curious how much of this changes once you account for a few basic fundamental things like: * Being over 25 * Having a college degree. The people who worry about marriage because of these stats are typically in this category. I bet just by accounting for these 2 points, the numbers would plummet to the 20s if not teens.

throwaway2037 2y ago

Great post, until this: > And as children get viewed as a selfish luxury What country / culture? Surely, no one is saying that in any country that I know well.

llm_nerd 2y ago
In much of the West the ability to have children is economically or logistically (e.g. a career that would fall apart if they had kids) out of reach for many [1], leading many to perceive it as a selfish luxury. A "must be nice" kind of thing. e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=children+a+luxury+item https://www.google.com/search?q=children+a+luxury+item With this comes the perspective that every downside parents enjoy is earned if not poetically satisfying. It is amazing how absolutely without sympathy -- instead holding smug satisfaction -- people are if a parent faces obstacles. [1] Obviously there are exceptions and different situations exist in different cultures and socioeconomic settings.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  Uh what? Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece: Absolutely false. Same in Japan, Korea, Taiwan. Edit I forgot: ALL of Latin America: False, children are treated as a blessing!

ToDougie 2y ago

> a couple is often entirely on their own. Yeah. This has been the worst part. Neither of our parents feel the need to help with their TIME, but they will sporadically send us money after making us feel bad about asking. Meanwhile they had all kinds of help from relatives, in time, sweat, and money. Part of the problem is that you don't get your full Social Security benefits until age 70, so for the one grandparent that is still working, they literally do not have the time to help. If they wanted to retire early, they would have to forgo what they perceive as critical $. Alternatively, they could sell their multi-million dollar home and downsize, but their egos could never handle that.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

I wish more of the country had tech work. I shouldn't have to move away from my village across the country to one of a handful of tech hubs. Incentivize remote work so we can spread out into these cheaper and under served communities.