[thr0wawayf00]

> But deep down I get it. Babies are a huge opportunity cost. Financially speaking, they are like winning the lottery but backwards. You can't even think of having one without cancelling your subscription to a good night's sleep. And if you take into account inflation, economic recession, and the rest of the news cycle's highlight reel, even a one-child family can seem to have one too many mouths to fish Lego pieces out of.

Every time I visit family for the holidays, I see this in real-time and it reaffirms my decision to not have children. I have an incredibly comfortable lifestyle saving for retirement, traveling and buying real estate. The moment I become responsible for another human, that all goes away.

Saving for college? Yeah right, state schools are gonna cost $100k per year by the time my kid would going off to school. Retirement? Inflation is already killing my parents' retirement so I've got to bank that I'm still probably not saving enough right now anyway.

More power to people who want that in life, but I can't tell you how many coworkers or family members I've met that had kids and just seemed like shells of themselves afterwards.

[osullivj]

The shift from child free adult to parent is similar in scale to adolescence. Can you remember being a pre-sexual child, all the confusion of teendom, and then sexual maturity. As a sexually mature adult, would you ever elect to revert to being a pre-sexual person?

That's the best analogy I can give to explain how parenthood changes you. Life is messier and more complex afterwards, just like sex, but immeasurably richer. And you develop parent-dar. It's like gaydar. Parenting changes you in a million tiny ways, and us parents can see that in others.

[Theory42]

I don't have kids; I really like this perspective, though. I don't happen to share it, but I can appreciate it.

It's obviously a necessary and good thing for people to have children if humanity is going to continue. However, one thing that isn't discussed much by Team Parents is the prospect of there being too much of a good thing. The population explosion over the last 150ish years is a clear trade between more people and less everything else in the natural world. At some point (now, anyone?), that trade is not worth making. It's an irresponsible trade. Does not promote the maturity of society, even if it matures the individual.

What say ye to this line of reasoning? I grant you that city-living and domestication is 'naturally' reigning things in as far as population growth, hence the article. I'm asserting that perhaps there is a kind of virtue in foregoing the wonderful self sacrificial experience known as being a parent, in that the childless are helping the general state of affairs.

[osullivj]

Perfectly sound line of reasoning. The obvious counter is to point out that many of the world's biggest economies require young productive folk paying taxes to support the elderly. That's a problem for developed economies with falling birth rates and low immigration. And the counter to that counter is to point at the economic model that bakes in the requirement for growth.

Remaining childfree avoids a lot of exhausting and messy complications. Just as remaining celibate avoids emotional entanglements and STDs, at the cost of loneliness. Historically, virtue has attached to celibacy in many religious traditions. Maybe a sufficiently strong and pervasive environmentalist worldview could impute virtue to the childfree. It is possible to change popular ethics in a decade or so: cf LGBTQ rights or attitudes to drink driving.

[AbrahamParangi]

This is a good analogy because parenthood is singular and profound. One of the few things for which is no replacement or equivalent experience.

[Tade0]

If considering children you focus on financials/comfort, you're going to get the same answer every time.

You don't do it to be better off or more comfortable. You do it to have a meaningful relationship.

It's really the same as having a life partner. Why do it when going out costs money and you'll have to adjust your schedule to their needs?

[nonethewiser]

I essentially see it the same way. It's a tradeoff of pleasure and comfort for meaning.

It's a counter intuitive choice in the modern world. Its increasingly common to choose comfort over meaning. Especially when so many dont think meaning even exists.

[analog31]

Is this borne out in data? I ask because among my friends and work mates, the ones with kids tend to be doing better financially. The higher ranks of the corporation are populated almost entirely with people who are supporting families.

I followed that path. When my first kid was born, I applied for a promotion into project management, and eventually people management. (I moved back out eventually). The vast majority of people I know who moved up into management did so coincidentally with the birth of their first kid.

[raesene9]

An ancillary question would be, how many of those people wanted to move into management?

Definitely in IT departments I've worked in, in the past, there were a lot of people in management who would have preferred to still be ICs but, for financial reasons, had moved upwards...

[gls2ro]

Just to preface this with: I don't try to convince you of anything, nor anyone else.

But there is a side of this conversation that I almost never see discussed:

What I want to add to this conversation is the following: it is a privilege (in the true sense that only a small group can afford to do this) for you to be able to decide not to have children and keep your conform. And this priviledge relies or borrows on the other people deciding to have children.

Because if nobody will have children then your retirement will be meaningless in the future. Nothing to invest in, no economical growth, no food, no products, no services.

Who will take care of you in the hospital when you will be old? As example? Who will pay for those (younger than you) doctors education?

Some parents, right?

So what you are exercising is a priviledge => available to a small group of people because the others are supporting the costs.

hot take: If the society will ever want to make this fair it should put higher taxes on people without children. As they need to spend money to buy good sleep and comfort in the future.

I even dare to say put a tax close to the estimated cost for having a children. Why? Just to make sure that the sleep is in the right balance when thinking about the future.

I repeat: this is not about the individual decision itself, everyone should do as they see it fit. But about the fact that we are part of a society and there are duties to that aswell.

[rhn_mk1]

By the time the person without children retires, they already completed the duty of supporting the previous generation, making your case for a tax weaker.

[gls2ro]

So lets see:

Person A (no children) gives 60% of all income for 40 years.

Person B (with children) gives 60% of all income and a child which will work and generate income and give taxes

Are you saying they are equal when thinking who contributes more for the future of society?

[DonHopkins]

You're conspicuously failing to account for the burden on society, the economy, and the environment that your children and their descendants will inflict, which is exponentially larger than a single non-breeder's finite contribution.

And you're also not addressing the fact that maximizing the number of humans on the earth is too much of a good thing, and makes life much worse for an exponentially larger number of people in the long run. Fewer people will suffer the sooner we slow and even gradually reverse population growth.

And you're incorrectly assuming that the only alternative to exponential population growth is sudden extinction, when it's much more likely that sudden extinction is actually the most likely result of overpopulation, due to ecological and climactic collapse and war.

If parents really altruistically cared for the wellbeing of their children and their descendants in the long term, and they're not just self-servingly and short-sightedly breeding in order to make their old age and retirement easier, then they should have fewer children to reduce the destruction they inflict of the environment from overpopulation, and stop driving their children to and from school in gas guzzling SUV minivans, when they could just as well ride their bikes or take a bus or public transit.

[Copernicron]

How is it a privilege when something like 10% or more of all people to have ever been born never reproduced? Not everyone who doesn’t have kids chose that. Some die before they can. Some are sterile. And some simply never get the chance for one reason or another.

I agree that we all have a duty to society but I disagree that I should have to pay absurd sums of money simply because you say so. I meet my duty how I choose and I already pay for your kids education through my taxes. Comments like that come across as envy that people without kids frequently have more disposable income than those with kids.

[notch656a]

Nah the first world can just rob third world elderly of their retirement by just importing in their most skilled/intelligent workers and spitting them back out when EvilCorp finishes chewing them up and cancels their work visa. No reason to have a child in the first world when the nominal comparative advantage in pricing is a little Bangladeshi child.

[toomuchtodo]

It costs $310k to pay for a kid from 0-18 per Brookings. The math is straightforward to work backwards to the income you need to afford that along with your basic needs and retirement savings, and most people don’t have the means. Median US lifetime earnings are $1.7 million.

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3608647-new-estimate-proj...

[WaitWaitWha]

The article states two (2) children costs $310,000. Comes out to be $8,611/year or $718/month per child. A tiny sample size, but I have several children and none of them cost me $23.58/day for 18 years.

Do you have a link to the actual study or the breakdown what went into this?

[lotsofpulp]

No, it states the per child cost for a family with 2 children:

> A recent estimate conducted by the Brookings Institution projected the cost of raising a child for a middle-income, two-parent married family with two kids to be north of $310,000.

>The estimate assumes the youngest child would be born in 2015 and covers raising the child through the age of 17. It does not include the cost of sending the child to college.

This seems to be the source:

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Brookin...

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2022/08/30/its-getti...

Edit: not only does the study exclude college costs, but it excludes daycare costs, which are relevant to pretty much all dual income couples.

[sanderjd]

This seems implausibly high excluding college and daycare costs, and maybe implausibly low including them.

[thr0wawayf00]

Not to mention that this represents a very median case, whereas a lot of parents want to pay for higher status schools and real estate to get access to higher status education, it's a never-ending keeping-up-with-the-joneses pi*-ing contest. To raise kids around my peers, a child could easily cost $500k+.

[lotsofpulp]

Pregnancy and birth ($3k to $10k) + daycare ($18k to $30k per year) + sickness needing doctor ($300 per visit). I probably got to $130k+ per kid before hitting kindergarten, for 2 kids with no chronic healthcare needs.

And I needed a flexible job that allows you to work from home or be off as necessary to take care of sick kids.

[D13Fd]

This looks right for what it lists but it misses many costs. You also need a bigger house to support the kids, and a bigger car to carry them around, plus car seats, food, clothes, toys, and furniture. They will destroy parts of your house and some of your stuff and you'll need replacements. You'll be spending much more time and money cleaning.

They will make every vacation more expensive in terms of lodging, travel, food, and activities.

You'll be paying not just for gifts for them, but for their friends' birthdays, and holiday gifts for their teachers. You'll pay for admission to parks, memberships, and other activities you take them to to keep them busy and help them develop.

Even if they go to public school, you'll be paying for before and after care, extra classes, activities, equipment, lessons, tutoring, and so on. Their various support systems will ask for donations. You'll have to pay for babysitters until they reach the age where they can be unattended.

The total cost is tremendous and hard to estimate.

(I say this all as someone who thinks it is worth it and who 100% supports having children for people who are in stable relationships and who can afford it!)

[kthejoker2]

4 kids, no major health issues, public school in a well regarded district, a few activities, company insurance, work from home spouse

My marginal housing, food, etc. costs is for them (guesstimating what I'd spend without them at 60% of my current expenditures), that's $700/month per kid * ~200 month = 140k per kid.

Maybe another $20k each in one off expenses like furniture, medical, birthdays?

A car for the last two years might run another $20k?

Day care definitely drives up the price.

But I guess being able to amortize over 4 kids makes it seem less daunting.

[RHSeeger]

The counter to that is that there's a lot of room _under_ that median case, too. Not everyone needs to be at or above the average. Not everyone _can_ be at or above the average.

[Balgair]

Two nit-picks:

1 - It's likely going to cost more than 100k per year per kid to send them off to college in ~18 years, even to a very cheap state school. The financial picture gets really complex, so talk to an advisor and not some random internet commenter. That said, our own financial advisor has us planning for ~1M total per kid for college, but we're very much on the high end here.

2 - I've helped a lot of family members pass away in the last few years. It's been abnormally high, but the world has been abnormal too. I've helped somewhat poor family and very very wealthy family pass. The one thing I've learned is that the last few years/months are not something you can save for.

Not that you can't have so much cash as to not pass it along. But that the swanky retirement home is not very swanky at the end of the day. One family member was in a memory care place that was costing ~20k / mo. Yes, really. They had very good pensions. But the thing is that the retirement/hospice is still just a job to the people there.

They aren't getting out of bed at 3am to change you, to pick you up, to bathe you. They put you in an ambulance in lieu of putting you back in a chair, because of lawsuits. They are doing the bare minimum that they have to. Trying to plan for your retirement care via lawyer is just never going to cover all the bases and little things that come up.

The only people that are going to be taking care of you when the end is near (and that can be for years of time), are the people that love you. Sure, your kids may hate you, but that's mostly on you. But people that do not love you are not going to take very good care of you at all. That doesn't mean kids for sure, it can be other people. But you've got to have people that love you close by you near the end.

[cloutchaser]

It’s your decision, but not having children because of your comfort is like saying you won’t ride an amazing wave as a surfer because it’s hard and dangerous.

Yep, it is. But when you ride that wave it will be the most amazing experience of your life. Even if it is hard.

it’s your choice, but you’re definitely missing out on something special. Something we were genetically created to do (which makes it even better than surfing)

[thr0wawayf00]

> it’s your choice, but you’re definitely missing out on something special.

I totally forgot to mention the patronizing attitude that so many people come to this conversation with. Thank for you for heads up.

[zpeti]

Patronising is thinking you know what it’s like having children without having them.

You don’t. You have no idea of the emotional and practical side of having children, and how hard and how amazing it is, and how it’s the best and hardest part of your life up until then.

Patronising is thinking you know you don’t want kids without having them. You don’t. You have no idea what it’s like.

[AlexandrB]

> Patronising is thinking you know you don’t want kids without having them. You don’t. You have no idea what it’s like.

This sentence is the definition of patronizing. It's the same thing parents tell their kids: "oh you just don't understand what it's like, that's why you don't agree with me".

[toomanyrichies]

> Patronising is thinking you know you don’t want kids without having them. You don’t. You have no idea what it’s like.

In this example, who exactly am I being patronizing toward? Myself?

[mftrhu]

> Patronising is thinking you know you don’t want kids without having them. You don’t. You have no idea what it’s like.

... what?

[the_only_law]

It’s “make up random definitions for words I don’t know” day apparently.

[mftrhu]

I'm just confused. I mean, I suppose one could argue that - "you cannot whether you will like something unless and until you try it" - if one was in the mood for a stupid argument: people can and do have opinions on, say, not losing their limbs without having someone chop them off.

They can listen to third parties which had the same experience, have experiences which are similar but less intense, or just use their imagination and figure out whether the person they are - whose values and goals they hopefully know - could possibly enjoy whatever is being discussed.

I still have no idea how someone saying "I won't pursue that because that's not what I want for myself" could possibly be "patronizing", even assuming it could be false.

[raesene9]

might be the most amazing experience of your life. Not everyone enjoys (or would enjoy) being a parent.

[mrighele]

Getting kids is the best retirement investment that you can do, because they will be there to help you when your physical and mental state will start to degrade.

They will be the ones taking you to doctor for visits, the ones that will keep you from getting scammed from your retirement money, and in general they will help you navigate the future society that will be much different from the current. So even if you hate them, kids is an investment worth considering.

[Copernicron]

Bullshit. There is no guarantee your kids will be there for you in your old age. Just look at all the seniors living in care homes that have no one visiting or sending them presents for Christmas. Perfectly normal parents can raise selfish little shits who abandon them in their old age. And some parents are downright awful to their kids and deserve to be alone.

Anecdotally speaking, my grandfather was an abusive old bastard who drove away his children. He died alone. My own father is selfish, negligent, and arguably emotionally abusive. I’m the only one of his children who talks to him and I only do it a few times per year. I know for a fact none of us are going to take him in when he can’t live on his own anymore.

[yesimahuman]

It’s fascinating to contrast this observation with my own as a parent: other parents seem to have much more richer lives post-kids than after, it just becomes much harder to relate with that part of them if you don’t also have kids, too.

[thweoruio34234]

> I have an incredibly comfortable lifestyle saving for retirement, traveling and buying real estate. The moment I become responsible for another human, that all goes away.

You realize that with the deflation that will hit most developed countries, all your savings will evaporate right ? It's a mathematical certainty given the way the economy works (coupled with fertility rates of < 1.5).

Immigration might work, but race is a big deal with a large section of the population esp. when it comes to low-end stuff.

[AlexandrB]

How would deflation cause savings to evaporate? Wouldn't the opposite happen during deflation and savings would be worth more?

Deflation would screw anyone with debt though.

[wil421]

If you only care about yourself go for it. I guess it’s somewhat sobering realizing you’re gonna be alone and your genetic material will be a dead end.

I have 3 kids 3 and under and probably got 4 hours of sleep last night. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. My kids are not treated like a drain on my potential investments.

Sure I can’t do my hobbies all the time but I can take my kids fishing and kayaking. The trips are shorter but fulfilling regardless.

[masklinn]

> If you only care about yourself go for it. I guess it’s somewhat sobering realizing you’re gonna be alone and your genetic material will be a dead end.

Sounds like you desperately needed to have a legacy, and got kids as a substitute for that. And as an insurance for your old age.

But sure GP is the one who only care about themselves.

> My kids are not treated like a drain on my potential investments.

True they’re treated as an investment.

[skinnymuch]

> If you only care about yourself go for it. I guess it’s somewhat sobering realizing you’re gonna be alone and your genetic material will be a dead end.

I don’t think your post makes you look like you’re the one who cares about others unlike who you’re responding to.

[wil421]

Not really OP doesn’t want to give up any of his investments or real estate because kids would be a drain on their finances and time.

[Copernicron]

My “genetic material” is a fucking dumpster fire. I struggle daily with incurable mental illness and I’m also a carrier for several debilitating diseases. I have chosen not to have children and nothing of value will be lost.

[rapsey]

> Every time I visit family for the holidays, I see this in real-time and it reaffirms my decision to not have children. I have an incredibly comfortable lifestyle saving for retirement, traveling and buying real estate. The moment I become responsible for another human, that all goes away.

It is unfortunate that unless you have children you can never know what it is like to have children. You see the external things, the effort and the cost. For most (i.e. non egocentric/narcissist personalities) having children is the most profound and meaningful experience of their lives. A normal parent loves their children more than they ever thought it possible to love someone.

You call your life comfortable. I as a parent would call it empty and sad. What you think of people as shells of themselves, I see as people focusing on what truly matters and brings happiness instead of momentary joy.

[DonHopkins]

>I as a parent would call it empty and sad.

That's pretty judgemental of you. If your own children decide not to reproduce themselves, will you judge their own lives as empty and sad too, consider your own children hollow failures for not giving you grandchildren, and express your disappointment to them that they have failed to live up to your own expectations as a parent? Or will you love and support them for making their own decisions, like you refuse to extend to other people who decide not to become parents?

[rapsey]

Funny how you can freely call parents shells of their former selves or slaves to their children or whatever you find online. But soon as you express your opinion on people who chose not to have children you are suddenly a judgemental asshole.

[RHSeeger]

They said that many of their coworkers that had children seem like shells of their former selves. Not all of them, and not by definition.

You are saying that anyone that doesn't have children automatically empty and sad.

- One of the statements is "in the people I've seen do x, an outcome of y seems common".

- The other is "in any person that does x, y is true"

Those are not the same thing.

[DonHopkins]

Including his own children being empty and sad if they don't deliver him grandchildren. That's just terrible parenting, to be so judgemental and demeaning of your own children.

Edit:

Then address my question instead of ignoring it. Why by your own judgemental attitude would your own children be any less empty and sad than anyone else if they chose not to reproduce themselves? And how are you not being a bad judgemental parent with that attitude? Don't have kids if you're not willing to let them make their own decisions.

[rapsey]

Nice straw man you have built here.

I did not answer your question because it is absurd. There is a difference between having an opinion and forcing that opinion on others. My children are their own people and they are allowed to disagree and I will not hold it against them. Because I love them more than they can understand until they have children themselves. I however hope they will be confident and flexible in their opinions and change them if they prove a poor fit to reality and not resort to logical fallacies or grudges.

[rapsey]

> You are saying that anyone that doesn't have children automatically empty and sad.

No I am saying that is what they seem to me. Just like people with children are shells of their former selves to him. You are splitting hairs and putting words in my mouth to make an obvious point. In the end you are just proving me right that one can not express any kind of negative about being childless without having people jump down their throats.

[DonHopkins]

You just don't like it when somebody points out that your own ad hominem attacks could just as well apply to your own children. You threw the first stone, without considering that you could be attacking your very own children too, and now you're mad at me for pointing that out. I'm not the one attacking your children, I'm just pointing out that you are, which is terrible parenting.

[DonHopkins]

Oh, I doubt it was sudden.

[RHSeeger]

It might be empty and sad _for you_, but that doesn't mean it is for everyone. Each person has their own things they enjoy. You sound exactly like the people telling everyone "spend your money on experiences, not things" because that's what makes _them_ happy.

There are a lot of people very happy with the choice they made to have children. There are a lot of people very unhappy with the choice they made to have children. The same things are true of people who choose not to have children.

Just because something is right for you doesn't mean it's right for everyone. And treating them condescendingly because you believe is does makes you the bad one in the conversation.