[usui]

> Once, and if, they were grown, they would then be part of your family enterprise, be it subsistence farming, cobbling, scrivening, or lording, and would add value.

> Now, having a child is a definite cost centre for the individual, for the family.

I get what you're saying, but I mean nowadays it's not like they grow up as a purely sunk cost... A fairly-average-in-all-industrious-matters child will get a job and make an income, and there's a good chance the child will produce more than the input cost. It's up to the family if they're going to share that total wealth with each other though.

In fact, compared to before, there might be even more opportunities for children to increase that "return on investment", if you really want to think that way.

[j7ake]

That kid though will want to have their own family, and on goes the cycle.

[usui]

But then what about the golden example the OP mentions? What was going to happen in that case? Were most children just born into indentured servitude and everything they produced was pure profit for the elders? Surely a good percentage of them wanted to have their own family and leave, or wanted some kind of compensation. The set of possible outcomes seems the same.