[figbucket]

If you work out savings of not having children and put the money in a decent savings plan you'll probably have enough to pay for better qualified care multiple times over what any children may provide (or not they're not obliged to help).

[rayiner]

Well in this hypothetical, the post-apocalyptic scenario that bankrupts Social Security also renders savings worthless. Having a kid is very robust against something like hyperinflation, lol.

In any case, that solution doesn't scale. Every form of retirement savings is just a way to earmark the production of someone else's kids (so long as human labor is needed for things, that is). If you invest in Google stock in lieu of having kids, you better hope that everybody doesn't get the same idea because then Google would have nobody to work there, and its advertising affiliates would have no working-age people to advertise to.

[figbucket]

Good point.

>Having a kid is very robust against something like hyperinflation, lol.

While I don't know what the statistics are I don't like the idea of having children in part because of the assumption that they would want to help care for you later in life.

As much as I like and dislike my parents I'd sooner move to the otherside of the world than help them though old age.

[rayiner]

> As much as I like and dislike my parents I'd sooner move to the otherside of the world than help them though old age.

This is a common mode of thinking, but I personally find it bizarre. The modern American generational structure is senselessly inefficient. We impose large taxes on workers so their parents don't have to live with them, and then those workers turn around and pay huge amounts for child care because their parents don't live with them.

[Guvante]

Except a child's benefit to society is quite large. A newborn is probably currently predicted to generate $1 million worth of economic benefit overall. (Actual numbers are hard to get perfect given the variance)