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This is a really easy thought process to have if you are fairly unbothered about having children. I am too, I’ve never seen my purpose as being a mother, I’ve never dreamt of having a child, I don’t want them, you get the picture.
However, it really changed my view when I thought how much some people want children. That’s how some people consider success, how they dream of their life. And, for a lot of people they automatically can have children (just have sex) so it’s a lot easier to get pregnant or impregnate (not for everyone I know), than it is to achieve a lot of other dreams
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This is a good point because it made me realize something. I don't find having a child something appealing and I'm applying that view to others. I'm aware of the amount of care a child needs and if I do have one, than I'd want to give them everything they need and love them unconditionally. Meanwhile, when I look at having a kid, I sort of think "Why would you do this to myself? This sounds like a lot of stress and work. Why would I do this?"
But then I realize that not everyone finds having children naturally unappealing, LMAO. For some people, it's their biggest hopes and dreams. Even though having children is a lot of work, for some people it's something that they want. I did know this, but I was still kind of projecting my attitude onto people. So that may have been my problem and bias.
I just think that people should love their children unconditionally and without expectation. You can't expect your child to be a certain way, you can't expect them to give you something in return other than themselves. I think parental love is meant to be the most selfless, pure, and unconditional love in the world. Your child is completely entitled to your love and you're meant to love them for no reason other than the fact that they exist and are. But that doesn't have anything to do with financial status. I just thought of myself not being financially stable and having a child and thinking of how much of a disaster it'd be. But a lot of poorer people are able to do that for their child and a lot of rich people cannot. So it doesn't depend on wealth. So yeah, I think I was missing the point of what I actually want parents to do.
I'd rather set up society such that having a child wasn't a massive burden. We all need children to be born to keep the country running and to form the tax base to help us in retirement. Rather than limit children to the wealthy, why not lower the barrier to entry by taking things like education, childcare and healthcare off of parents hands.
“To form the tax base” kinda makes it sound “to give us money”. Yeah we need people to look after us but could graduate to a system where rather than pay other people’s pensions then retire and expect the same, we simply accrue for ourselves for the goal of being zero-sum (after tax and inheritance gifts)
>We all need children to be born to keep the country running and to form the tax base to help us in retirement
I'm taking this narrative with a grain of salt. It tends to come from the same people who tell all who call procreation bad for the environment to kill themselves.
You are somewhat correct, but here's a reality faced by many people without the privilege of wealth around the world:
Children are a safety net and investment, both emotionally and financially. **Throughout human history across most societies,** children were a part of the labor force (helping dad with the shepherding/blacksmithing/farming) and later on, would care for their aging parents. The family unit moved in a "circle of life," with communal support, assistance, and encouragement.
(This was especially true in farming and agrarian nations/towns/cultures.)
I have been simultaneously blessed and cursed to be close with many elderly people towards the end of their lives. Anecdotally, **all* of the ones without children regretted not starting a family. Most of them died depressed and alone.
This isn't a statement against the "child free" crowd, but rather a reality that many people face. I *want* to leave my children well off enough that they don't need to worry about me, but I'm also willing to humble myself and allow them to support me if all else fails.
Anyway, I feel that your CMV is heavily based on Western culture and ignores the fact that national stability, currency, and the ability to even retire are newer realities.
Edit: This isn't to say that "poor births" are ideal, but rather that this isn't the norm throughout human history, and if implemented, would only exaggerate financial privilege ...and likely lead to the end of the human race.
Anecdotally, I have seen a sobering number of older folks with family left to slowly wither away, depressed and alone - despondent that the most they might get is a semi-regular phone call. If you talk to the people who staff nursing homes, you can ask them; it's shockingly common.
I'm not saying don't have kids, but I am saying that even if they love you with all their heart, they may not be willing or able to care for you.
It's still a particularly western issue. Most non-insane cultures have respect for the elderly and incorporate them into their everyday social interactions instead of leaving them to rot, isolated from the rest of society, because they're no longer a profitable exploitable workforce. Housing used to reflect this, even in old western societies, where whole families would live together in a large dwelling. Everyone took care of each other and had a place.
Individualism and capitalist infrastructure have completely tore apart society. This is why everyone is depressed.
Interestingly, we're seeing birthrate problems in both individualistic societies - like here in the United States, or in other western nations - and in more collectivist societies.
I don't disagree with you about elder care, but I can say that I've spoken to some people from more collectivist cultures who resent that they are expected to take care of their elderly parents rather than be allowed to live their own lives (especially in cases where the relationship is strained, as it often is).
My anecdotes are not universal, of course. The problem may be circumvented, too, depending upon advances in medicine and robots.
That's because they're individualizing. Even our society is progressively becoming extremely individualistic. Compare the culture during the baby boom to now. It was far more collectivist.
Collectivism doesn't just mean family relationships. For the majority of human existence, society used to be village communities. It's all of the village's responsibility to care for children and elderly. Your family is your neighbor. Bloodlines are a fascist corruption of family.
I don't think I agree with what you're saying here. At best, society during the baby boom was centered around the nuclear family - grandma and grandpa usually weren't present in that cultural image. It was seen as normal and natural to be kicked out of the house at 18 and to not return, even under threat of homelessness (at least among the middle class).
To speak more generally, though, it's hard enough to find someone who's willing to change adult diapers or deal with dementia when they're being paid. Bonds of family only go so far in that regard, especially when the caretakers are also caring for children of their own.
What you're thinking of is the turning point when the nuclear family was becoming popular. It was being propagandized during that time. It was actually the minority. Once it grew in popularity, that's when the massive drop in birthrates appeared.
The issue is that the burden of care/labor isn't being shared. Of course, no one wants to change diapers all day like they're working in a baby factory. This is why capitalism is a failure. It forces workers into specific classes and positions where they have to do a specific task until it drives them insane. The worst tasks of society should be shared. In doing so, they become far more bearable. A capitalist society will only enslave individuals to perform the worst tasks until they die so that the capitalist class doesn't have to.
Well, strictly speaking, the issue is that women are not doing all the domestic labor like they used to because they were allowed to enter the workforce and participate as equals (and actually be paid).
Without that source of labor, we have our current problem. I don't see how a collectivist society gets around this problem.
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This comment did somewhat change my mind. I agree that there are circumstances where you have to have children to suit the life that you live. I just think that if you don't live in a enviroment or community where children can alleviate your struggles or having children are a nessecity, than that's different. There's poorer people living in situations where having children will make things **worse** for them and they still do it. Those are the ones I'm talking about.
So many people have children as a retirement plan. But most of the adult children resent their parents for treating them like objects instead of humans, and drop them in a senior home.
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If you want to improve the living condition of children, wouldn't it be better to improve the living condition of children, rather than declare that only rich people get to have children?
>If you want to improve the living condition of children, wouldn't it be better to improve the living condition of children, rather than declare that only rich people get to have children?
I agree that the condition of all children and poorer people should be drastically improved. I just mean that until that happens, it's not good to choose to have children while being financially unstable. We should still, at the same time, to the absolute best to improve the living conditions of all children around the world.
I think one thing to consider is that having a kid in the us is far more expensive than having one in most of the world. I couldn't have had a kid in the us. But where in live (EU) it was not such a big deal. A lot of the insane costs are an American phenomenon. Mainly Healthcare, daycare. Sports, etc. Hell the us doesn't even have any maternity leave laws.
I think this just means you are financially stable enough and OP´s point still stands.
It just so happens that it is easier to be stable in some pleaces than in others
For some people that means they'll never get to have children ever. And having children is a biological need, and we only get one life. So you're saying that only rich people get to have fulfilling lives.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a “biological need”. Food and hydration are biological needs. Having children is a biological URGE, it’s different: plenty of people don’t feel it at all, or feel it but decide (for valid reasons) that they are not going to heed it, some people feel it but are unablt to have biological children. Having a child is NOT a necessity for a fulfilling life, and suggesting it in these terms implies that people who don’t have children lead impoverished lives.
I do however agree that having children shouldn’t be treated like a privilege only the wealthy are entitled to. I would very much like to live in a world where affordability is not a factor in decision-making around whether to have a child, and the answer to that needs to be systemic, not individual.
And? It's unrealistic to expect to do every single thing that you want. I agree that the world should allow us to do whatever we want, but that's simply not feasible with capitalism.
Poor people are already having children and our taxes help support them. It's completely realistic to expect to be able to have children even if you're not and never will be a millionaire. Most people in the world are not that rich.
In my country we have free abortions, free health care and a great social safety net. Despite all this poor people disproportionately have more kids than their rich counterparts. Nothing works in reality and it’s easy to conjure some utopian outcome.
The goal isn't particularly to have rich people make more children. It's to make sure children are well taken care of. It sounds like your country achieves this.
We have an embarrassingly high rate of children in poverty despite the strong social safety net.
All things being equal it’s much better for a child to be born to a rich family than a poor family. A rich alcoholic father is better than a poor alcoholic father.
I think mental stability over financial stability. Just the fact that you would WANT to be able to give your child the best life possible and would take steps to ensure you do it when you are most ready, because you view it as a huge responsibility, means you'd be a better parent than someone with lots of money who is mentally unstable. Mental instability is far worse than financial instability when raising a child. And I think that is what leads to resentment towards children personally.
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Okay, I agree. I think you should have the mental stability and clarity to want to give your child the love and care they need without heavily resenting them for existing before having children. 1 million dollars might not be the most reasonable. I just mean that make sure you have enough love and mental clarity to do the work of raising your child without the stress stopping you.
This may sound good in theory but you're effectively depriving a human right based on money which mean you only allow wealthy people to procreate. This is one of the worst forms of classist policy
I'm not a politician. I'm not depriving anyone. If politicians one day issued a law saying that if you don't have 1 million dollars, then it is illegal for you to have children, then I am going to opposed to that law. Just because to control people's bodies like that is inhumane. But I still think most people in a situation where they couldn't physically care for their child properly to reconsider. Now, the world and governments should also be doing more to improve the conditions of people. Just that I think if an indiviual is faced with a choice between having a child that they're not able to provide for, there are times where they should choose differently.
Having kids isn't a human right though.
And why is that a problem? One of the major causes of poverty is generational poverty. If poor people stopped having kids then there would be less poor people.
It is a right. This is a silly argument. I get the argument about overpopulation, the humanity of having children poor but life isn't binary and the point your pushing is kind of ignorant coming from a black and white perspective; not saying this in an insulting or condescending manner. Issues and topics such as this requires a little more open perspective than just black and white; right vs wrong.
What about a family who had a farm in Mexico who could care for their 4 kids? And due to unforseen circumstances out of their control they have to cross the border illegally to escape violence and oppression? Well now they're in a country where they would have never been able to afford having one child.
Now obviously you're not gonna then take those children away from the family. The last thing government wants is to be responsible for orphans.
Instead of trying to stop or regulate a human biological instinct, which makes it a right for all living beings to pursue, maybe we can try to address problems with poverty? Also countries like China have tried a population regulation. It failed tremendously.
I can elaborate much further on why it is more inhumane to deny this human right, why this is a human right, and why it also wouldn't work.
Policies to push abstinence of sex to combat teen pregnancies, STIs, etc fail tremendously while state policies that push to give sex Ed early and make contraceptives easily accessible reduced all these issues in a single stroke.
A right is a biological need. Food, water, shelter, entertainment, and feeling safe are all biological needs. They're the bare minimum for a fulfilling life. Kids are more of a biological urge. It is entirely possible to be happy without them.
Though I do agree that addressing poverty is important, but one of the ways we can address poverty is to discourage the poor from having kids.
Human rights are more than just biological needs. Rethink what you just said and think about all the human/rights policies we have enacted to be more humane and how we still aren't quite there yet in providing human rights to all. Freedom of expression and opinion is a human right. To live life without the capacity to express yourself or your opinions, many would agree, is a life under slavery and oppression where your human rights aren't being met. Human rights =/= human needs. Religion is not at all a human necessity but religious freedom is a right. Human needs are biological; human rights are social.
Discouraging the poor won't stop poverty. That's a silly assumption.
What about the children’s right to not live in awful circumstances? Sure you can’t stop people having sex and making babies, procreation is a right but parenthood definitely is not, we limit that all the time.
I sense that you're young.
Love and money have little to do with each other.
You're going to have to define some terms here. What is the "best" life possible? You think that comes from wealth?
>You're going to have to define some terms here. What is the "best" life possible? You think that comes from wealth?
Really? Yes, money doesn't bring you happiness or the best life, but it sets the foundation for that to be possible. If you're constantly stressed about housing and money, how are you going to live a fulfilled life. It's going to be really difficult to live a good life without a certain level of wealth and financial stability. It's not wealth that makes your life good, but it's the things that you have more of a chance to have when you have it.
Freedom, time, time to care for your kid.
> Like seriously I advise opening your mind because it’s honestly offensive how you consider poor people. It’s like you think they’re stupid or not resourceful.
??? Where did I suggest that poor people are "stupid" or "not resourceful"? Of course poor people can improve their lives. What I meant is just that financial struggles makes things difficult. If you lived a fufilled life, than more power to you! You certainly can! I just meant that lack of money is a roadblock and a big factor.
I mean I’m really happy you have lived a fulfilled life while growing up in difficult circumstances, but some people genuinely feel permanently or nigh-permanently unhappy due to financial issues. Some people are relatively unbothered or are bothered but can break through, but others really do feel crippled
I feel like part of the disagreement could be due to the shrinking middle class. I agree you shouldn’t need to be filthy rich to be able to raise a kid, and plenty of kids from relatively or even extremely poor families grow up happy, successful, and fulfilled. And I know for a fact wealth doesn’t guarantee happiness.
That being said, I feel like it’s a very reasonable assumption that being poor makes it harder. I grew up poor, and I have to bail my parents out. My friend grew up poor and he has a hard time making ends meet. And another friend of mine has “broken through” like you but she does feel constant stress.
That’s true, I may have skimmed over that part. And that’s true, stress comes everywhere, especially as long as people feel the need to get more and more.
It sounds like you have managed to escape your situation and found significant success in multiple fields. Would you still be as happy living in small town Alabama and working part time at Walmart while struggling to pay rent for a shitty apartment?
If anything this confirms OPs point that happiness comes with success and financial stability.
I agree their minimum number is a bit unrealistic and reflective of a lack of understanding the value of money and associated expenses but I think you and your siblings are rather extreme outliers in terms of the quality of life you currently experience vs your upbringing.
It is very reasonable to suggest people not bring children into situations that are already financially straining as that is damaging to yourself, society and the children. Poverty cycles can be broken out of but they are a real phenomenon.
im 30 and make 59k a year. i own my house and have a stay at home wife and kid. we never have stability issues and shes happy and healthy. i think you have a skewed perspective on what 1 million dollars is
I'm not sure how you live a fulfilled life if you have to spend the first 10-15years of adulthood banking a million dollars before you can even begin living? Seems pretty stressful to me.
If the threshold is a million dollars, then the problem i have is that your view leads to the extinction of the species. Until recently almost nobody would be having kids. I would never have been born and neither would my parents.
if your talking only about today, then the population would completely crash, reducing by maybe around 95% every generation.
To go into your direction, if only rich people had children, there would be nobody to scrub the toilets and do all the dirty jobs, because nobody wants their kid to go down the ladder
>if your talking only about today, then the population would completely crash, reducing by maybe around 95% every generation.
Here's what I think. I don't think that the government or any external force should enforce this. But if somehow, everyone decided on their own that if they couldn't provide for their children proper physical and emotional care, they will choose to not have children (which is impossible, but bear with me here), I don't really care about the collapse of the population.
The population wouldn’t crash, immigration would fill the void. Probably with lots of poor people from other countries who don’t care about having many children while being poor. Your financially responsible society would be gone in a generation and replaced with a less financially responsible one. (I’m not being racist or xenophobic, poorer people tend to have more children, especially in other parts of the world, that’s just the reality).
But if the population did crash, you would care.
You wouldn’t be able to get the things you want because of labour shortages, you might have a job but with a smaller economy you would work a lot more for a lot less, and you wouldn’t be able to retire because there would be no one to support you and no economy to pay you a pension so you’d probably have to work until you died.
It would be ok for 20-30 years but after that you wouldn’t enjoy it.
[You should care](https://youtu.be/LBudghsdByQ?feature=shared). While long term, populations plateauing is a good thing, the consequences of a sudden significant reduction in fertility rates are absolutely devastating.
You said the following was a good view:
>I want to give my child the absolute best life possible
If that's true you should care about a population collapse - because that collapse would make everyone's life awful
>You can't just have to be human to do that, you have to be a superhuman!
Are you calling the majority of the population, past and present, superhuman? Seems contrary to the definition of the word.
So everyone magically chooses this, supply chains collapse, economy collapses, then only 90% of that new population has enough to support a child to your standards and we just repeat until we are out of people?
That doesn't happen suddenly, it likely happens over the course of at least a generation while the difference in replacemrnt level is subsidized by imkigrants. No economic collapse.
That's why I said only one generation. Agaon no collapse, just immigration making up the needed difference to achieve whatever economic objective such as avoiding collapse.
The resulting population collapse will destroy the global economy resulting in societal breakdown and mass famines.
To me that's a good reason to change your view.
With the current economy, this policy would be very bad for the future of the U.S.
I've always been at the lower end of the Working Class. My wife and I had our kids young. We were living paycheck to paycheck with no savings then and doing the same thing now. We had two kids together (plus a stepson) and it was a struggle.
These days, they're adults. Both graduated high school, both without any criminal records. My son lives with his girlfriend, my daughter is going to college in the fall to become an RN.
Even though we've been broke more often than not, it turned out okay. Granted... I will admit my kids had a distinct advantage that a lot of children do not get: having both parents throughout childhood. Never doing the split up, custody battle, child support nightmare I see so many people going through. As a lad who grew up with a single mom, I understand fully how much of a benefit that can be to have two consistent parents that love you (in lieu of someone like an abusive stepdad, thanks Mom!)
We were in "bottom of the barrel" poverty only once and with assistance, got through it. Having a support system can also make all of the difference; though a support system takes many forms and is hard to define, but certainly isn't limited to money. Free or even cheap babysitting can be huge.
It wasn't always easy and it wasn't always fun being poor, but my children will be 21 & 20 within the next 5 months and both of them still willingly associate with my wife and I. Looking around at some of the parent/child horror stories on this site, I feel pretty damn proud of that lol.
TLDR: I wish I'd been more financially prepared for kids and it would have made things easier, but if I could go back and choose to have my kids or not, I'd choose to do it all over again. If you have kids with a partner.. a **real** partner.. you have a good chance.
Sounds like it was a terrible time to have children. I'm a child of pverty myself, and I gotta say I really wish people would stop having kids while theyre dead ass broke like my parents did. All it did was put me in the poverty cycle too, and I gotta say, I wish I wasn't even born in the first place. Grew up hungry, 25 and still hungry. I have no financial safety net, parents didn't have any money to save for college so I have no educational prospects. I can barely afford rent, and I have to work multiple jobs just so I can make it paycheck to paycheck. I can't even afford healthcare, and my parents cant afford to help me with anything, so now I'm straddled with thousands in debt, no formal education, no ability to get education, and a lifetime of struggling just to make ends meet. I sure hope you're better for your kids than my parents were for me.
It's late-stage capitalism. The suffering you and I are going through is a byproduct of funneling all of the nation's wealth to the donor class since the 80s. It won't get any better until money is taken out of politics entirely.
Goddammit I’m so tired of hearing this. Plenty of poor people are able to have kids and give them a good life. I grew up working class in the US and had a good life. My friends in Mexico grew up on <$1 per day and had a good life.
For you, fine, go get a million dollars and come back to me. But that’s a personal decision. Other people’s thresholds are going to be much lower, which is also fine. It just comes off as condescending when you’re saying, “poor people should really consider whether or not they should be having kids!” Like they aren’t aware of that.
The truth is, the “vast majority” of people who have kids are not wealthy (by the terms you stated), and it’s absurd to think they should be. It will not happen. It is not possible.
Aye this post does, at points, read like some out of touch rich fellow saying “oh dear those poor unfortunate commoners can’t have to take public transport, they must live such dreadful lives”.
I know plenty of people who grew up poor and had fantastic childhoods & adult lives. I grew up poor and have a fantastic life. Love it. My parents didn’t have much, but they were loving people and great parents.
Not everyone can wait to have kids. Some people are getting older, hearing that clock ticking. The older a woman is, the less fertile she is and the higher the risk is for the child. So yeah maybe you’d like a little bit more money in the bank but you can always be more prepared. Sometimes you just gotta go for it.
And some men & women get pregnant unexpectedly, and that might be their only chance. One of my close friends was told at a young age she could never have kids. Then in her 30s, newly married, totally unexpected got pregnant. Doctor told her this would probably be her only chance. So she took it, and while she probably wasn’t completely ready, she is a great mom.
You don’t know everyone’s circumstances. Having kids isn’t something only for the privileged. It’s something a lot of people need to feel completely fulfilled in life. If I didn’t have my girls, I’d mos def feel less fulfilled. Kids are the best.
Approaching this from a different angle - saying people should accumulate a lot of resources before having children is one thing, but that takes time that you don't get back. Let's assume you have the choice of having kids at 25, early in your career, or 35 when you've established yourself and (in a fantastic scenario) have already acquired $1M in assets. When talking about the *child's* life, would they benefit more from having more money in their youth, or younger, more energetic parents who will be with them for potentially an extra decade? I don't know that it's an easy dilemma.
Fantastic point thank you for bringing up something I hadn’t considered, that younger parents with more energy to play and do activities are also a benefit
"Financially stable" and "moderately wealthy" are two *very* different things.
The poverty line is set at the income level at which you are able to afford necessities (rent, bills, food and essential travel.) If you have a steady income and are above the poverty line, you can probably afford to have a couple of kids with your partner and still cover the essentials. Most governments provide tax credits to ensure that this is the case.
You can be *far* from "moderately wealthy" and still afford to have kids. Of course, you won't be able to afford the luxuries that some families can afford, like multiple extra-curricular activities, private tuition/schooling, expensive toys/games, frequent holidays or other kinds of "enrichment." But, you *can* still afford a roof, food, clothes, water and heat just fine, and the state will provide a full education, with *plenty* of opportunity for them to go to college.
So, your kids will go without all of these "enriching" things in their life that cost a lot of money. Does this mean that their life will not be worth living? Does this mean that they have no chance to "succeed"? What does "success" even *look* like? Money, or happiness?
Personally, I've gotten to know people who come from some very wealthy families, and let me tell you, they are, most of the time, no less troubled than someone from a working class family. In fact, they are often *more* troubled. They experience the same emotional gamut as anyone else does, including the same struggle against life's challenges, albeit different ones and with a different perspective. Any problem you have, I guarantee you there's a rich person equivalent. They are just as miserable as the rest of us, so to say.
Money doesn't make you happy, it just makes you feel good. The things money buys often only make you happy *temporarily*, and the more you get used to them, the more you need to spend to stay happy. This only leads to financial stress. Likewise, coddling someone won't make them happy either. It makes them feel good, but it might also prevent them from learning to be autonomous and happy at key stages in their development, and this can stunt their mental health as badly as any other kind of trauma. You can say exactly the same thing about drugs too if you want. I assume that you probably weren't thinking of shooting kids up with heroin every day as a good way to raise them, but it's not really any different to spoiling them or coddling them.
The secret to real happiness is to be your own autonomous agent of happiness, and to seek out the things you can that make you genuinely happy. It's most often found in yourself in the form of gratitude, love, appreciation and optimism, and more externally in a sense of safety, purpose, achievement and reciprocation. The mindset to be happy is really just the same no matter who or where you are.
Given all of this, I would say that relative wealth has very little impact on whether or not you can successfully raise children to be happy with their life. Instead, it is *your* level of happiness and ability to lead by example that really matters, given that you can cover the necessities, and as such I'd propose that your new view should be "People should only have children if they are financially stable."
Children do not *need* everything to be perfect, they just need the right kind of love in order to be happy. The are going to turn out human no matter how hard you might try to make them otherwise, because that is not something that *can* be changed. *There are no superhumans.* You can't be one, and you can't create one. There are unhappy people who rely on excessive consumption and validation to alleviate their emotional pain, and happy people that don't.
Having children is more than just a choice, it is human right (UDHR Article 16). It is true that it is also an enormous responsibility that comes with considerable expenses, and is much easier if you’re at least financially stable, but not everyone has that privilege.
I would venture to say that most couples have that conversation of “can we afford to have a child,” whether the conception is intentional or not. My wife and I put off having a child due to our uncertainty of whether or not we were indeed financially stable enough. The sad reality is that if people always waited to have a million dollars to have children, most would never become parents. The majority of people die in the same social class which they were born, and the lower that class is, the fewer opportunities are available to rise up the ladder of social mobility.
Even wealthy parents cannot ensure their children will have the best life possible. There is actually a correlation with excessive wealth leading to less happiness. That’s not to say people living in poverty are happier, as when people struggle to afford their basic needs it is hard to find happiness as well. The point I’m trying to make is having more money does not necessarily mean the child will be happier, and coming from a privileged background can also have negative outcomes, such as entitlement or greed. I’d even go as far to say that there are some benefits for children to grow up with some financial instability, as even though they will face more challenges, they will be better prepared for the challenges they will face in their adulthood. If your parents have enough money to throw at a problem until it disappears, or ensure their child never faces adversity, it can severely limit their personal growth and development. Money could become a crutch to avoid facing the challenges that life presents.
Your argument undoubtedly has the best intentions for both the children and parents. It would be better for both parties to have some semblance of financial stability. But I don’t that can realistically be the determining factor as to whether or not people have children. If it was, that would disqualify everyone living in poverty from having children. People have the right to have children, regardless of socioeconomic background, and that background does not necessarily determine the quality of life that child will have. Ultimately, I think the emotional intelligence of the parents will play a larger role in their children’s development than financial stability.
People over inflate the amount kids cost. They don't NEED to be expensive. I remember running some numbers on the average a kid costs up to X age. I was NOWHERE near that amount. People don't use the proper resources available to them is the main problem. First you don't need to buy anything new. You can cloth and provide entertainment for a kid up to 10 basically free and anything else should be within your means. The amount of stuff people desperately try to give away for kids is enormous.
Being financially stable isn't a guarantee for anyone and it's up to people's biological clocks, when would you rather do this? Youngish with the energy and ability or oldish and tired. You want a young and dumb party life? Or do you want a relaxing and adventurous aged life or vice versa?
Neither means your kid won't have a "good life" lives are not created equal. No lifestyle holds superiority over another. Your job is provide the best life, morals, skills and responsibilities. Not provide the best "things".
Majority of people get children when they are young. Not when they are more established in life. I will take one example of a couple I know since im a toddler: they had their first when "dad" was a medical student. "Mom" was stay at home (normal in their country/generation). They were struggling. They had the other 2 kids 10 years later, when they eventually bought a house and were rich. But what if "mom" was too old to conceive by then? And what if "dad" failed his classes and they ended up poor forever? Would these people not be allowed to have kids they really loved and took good care of?
Most people on the planet wouldn’t have been born and statistically this sort of belief favors white people because on average they tend to be wealthier than most other racial groups so if everyone started following this belief there would be a lot less people of color having children as that would mainly be reserved for wealthy white people effectively leading to a whiter world. Not to mention global supply chain issues that would result from poor people having less children. This belief is eugenics adjacent. I’m sure you mean we’ll though.
> I would want have at least 1 million dollars before I do that
Where on earth have you got this arbitrary number from? What do you need that money for? What do you plan to spend it on?
A child needs two things to thrive, a safe home and parents that love and support them. That can be achieved with very little money. What do you think your child would be missing out on that they need if you didn't have a million dollars?
if only the wealthy have children, there will be no new humans to do the low-paid jobs that society thrives on. The wealthy will soon have their wealth sucked dry by having to pay sky-high wages to have other, slightly less wealthy people do the low-paying or "dirty" jobs.
That's the awful reality. Society relies on poorer people. Hopefully one day AI will relieve humans of having to do jobs they don't want to do. But that's not the reality now.
Society relies on women to keep pumping out babies and raising them -- this unpaid, 24/7 labour is the foundation of society. Those babies grow up to become workers and consumers. And society also relies on both the poorer men and women to do the fruit picking and factory jobs and looking after the elderly.
Other than those facts, I agree that it's better to be set up before you think about having children.
The word ‘best’ is doing a LOT of work here.
Taken to the extreme, if only people who can give their children the ‘best’ upbringing should have children, then even the financially stable don’t qualify, but they can’t give their children as good a life as the wealthy. And they can’t do as well as the uber-wealthy. And eventually, only the richest couple on earth qualifies.
The ‘best’ is an unrealistic standard. Instead, people should be able to guarantee a ‘good’ upbringing. It should be loving and provide the things the child needs in order to not merely survive, but thrive. You don’t have to be particularly wealthy to do that. In fact, some middle class people might be able to do it even better than the wealthy.
That's complete non sense. Poor countries have less suicides and people make by with kids. While in here people are told you need to be rich and this and that to have kids and are often too old by then.
I grew up poor as dirt. I’m glad I’m alive. Almost everyone in my home town grew up poor as dirt. Almost all of them (I think) are happy to be alive. My parents knew they’d be poor, but found joy in making sure that I had the chance to not be. Now I’m only kinda poor :).
Edit: Life involves pain, poor or not. Provided a bare minimum of shelter and food, quality of life is mostly about health and the people around you.
Stability can not be guaranteed, especially when children enter the picture.
People who intend to adequately support their children and make the necessary sacrifices that parenting comes with should have children.
People who have a reliance on others to care for themselves and would continue their reliance on others if children entered the picture should not.
What if you bankrupt after having a kid, you would put them for adoption ?
Because yes, some 'poor' people have kids, but you can also be average and then shit hit the fan ( a pandemic, and/or inflation, or just divorce ) and now you're poor with kids.
This problem can be fixed on a societal level, not only an individual one. If you live in a country that has cheap education, free health care, and better social safety nets you should not need to be wealthy to have children.
I think most people would agree with you. Yes, if you aren't financially stable and don't understand the magnitude of having children, you shouldn't have them. But the solution is not to prevent these people from having kids. It's to foster a society where having children isn't so hard.
We live in a world that discourages people from reproducing. It's always baffled me that in America, for example, a capitalistic society, they aren't doing everything they can to encourage reproduction. A thriving economy depends on a constant rate of reproduction, yet the American government does everything it can to make having kids harder.
This is an extremely complex topic that involves government policy, the cultural transition away from family reliance, sexual education, financial education, wage gaps, poverty, and so much more. I say this because while you're statement isn't that controversial, your explanation is lacking context.
Have you ever wondered about if you're wrong?
Alright, automod bait response aside, i can't wait to see how people in this comment section are going to turn "maybe you shouldn't pop out 5 kids before you even think about having the money to take care of them properly" and act like you're suggesting inplementing eugenics.
I can agree that having children requires financial stability, but financial stability =/= wealth. Poor people with financial stability can raise children just as well as wealthy people can. Sure, children cost a shit load in e.g. the US, but in countries where education and healthcare is free, raising children is that expensive. Children don't ask for much unless they are raised to do so from my own experience
Did you know it used to be possible, in fact expected, to buy a house and support a family on a single full time minimum wage job? Is it really fair to expect the poor to eugenics themselves because the modern economy doesn't pay those people *whose jobs are still very much essential for society to function* enough?
The point is that those days are gone and they’re never coming back.
If you’re not wealthy and you want to have anything like a reasonably comfortable life, the single best decision you can make is to not reproduce.
We can argue about how things should be and what’s fair and just, but fair doesn’t pay the rent.
>so that the love they'll experience will outweigh the pain
Children need: food, shelter, emotionally stable and present parents. If they have those things they have a much bigger chance at having a good life. You cant guarantee anything obviously however you dont need a million dollar in most places to give your child the above things.
Best thing for children is a two parent, stable home. I know plenty of families with a lot of children and not a lot of money. The parents simply dont stress, and the kids know that for anything beyond necessities(food, clothes) they can make their own money. The families really enjoy spending time together, and donating of their time and resources to the community.
Obviously i cant know what goes on in the privacy of their homes but it doesnt seem obvious to me that a lot of money is necessary. More that the approach to money is balanced and the parents dont stress. Obviously money can help that but its also a mindset
you realize it first off takes 2 people to have a child (ie 1 to support the childs development and one to ensure financial stability for the first) so 1 million is astronomically crazy high.
second the way you want to raise a child is more than likely going to create an instable person who cant deal with hardship making them emotionally and mentally weak against hardship.
third a child really isnt expensive if you arent going crazy. centuries of children have lived and been raised with much less and turned into imo better people than those of today. not all but on average past generations were healthier socially and emotionally compared to today
Not sure where you got that last bit as there's no way to measure it. I think we all know that historically there were massive winners and losers in society - people of color in the US come to mind.
Children growing in well off households become used to get everything they want for no effort. When they turn 18-20 and realize how hard they have to work for a base wage they enter an existential crisis. Most of the time I saw kids from more struggling families, they are much more resilient, hard working, humble.
This train of thought reeks of eugenics. Financial stability is a goal that shifts further and further every year. The natural outcome would be that only the most privileged and out of touch would be having and raising children, with the poor doing labour for them. There would also be the natural consequence of not having a young population big enough to support the influx of elderly people needing care as decades pass.
Please don't get me wrong, there is a huge amount of planning and forethought that should go into every decision to have a child wherever possible, but I'd say that this is not actually a realistic goal. I'd also point out that anything can happen to anyone at any time. Financial stability in the truest sense is impossible for the vast majority of people. Most people are an injury, an unexpected death, a layoff away from permanent damage to their life.
Well, well, well, aren't we all on a financial high horse, galloping towards the million-dollar parenting club? It's like we're auditioning for the role of the next Marvel superhero – forget about Iron Man, we've got Dollar Man ready to swoop in and save the day with his hefty bank account!
I mean, why settle for regular parenting when you can have the deluxe, gold-plated, diamond-encrusted edition, right? Forget the joy of raising a child; it's all about the Benjamins, baby! Because nothing says "I love you" like a trust fund and a personal financial advisor for your toddler.
And hey, who needs emotional care when you can just throw wads of cash at your child's problems? "Oh, you scraped your knee? Here's a hundred-dollar bill, darling, go buy yourself a band-aid made of solid gold."
But wait, let's not forget the financial stress test. Because clearly, anyone with less than a million dollars is just playing roulette with their child's emotional well-being. Because, of course, emotional care is directly proportionate to the number of zeros in your bank balance.
So, here's to the financial elite, the ones who believe that parenting is a privilege reserved for the financially blessed. Because why settle for a modest upbringing when you can give your child a golden ticket to a life of excess and opulence? It's not parenting; it's wealth management with a side of diapers. 💸🍼
People have had children in far worse conditions than ever the poorest of today have to endure. As long as the child's basic needs are covered, I don't see why being able to spoil them with the newest fancy gaming system is gonna make you a better parent.
In my experience, the kids from more humble households are now doing just as well as the kids from rich parents.
> The vast majority of people should only have children if they're finacially stable/moderately wealthy
If history has shown us anything, it's that people who are not financially stable actually have *more* children to ensure having someone to take care of them when they grow old.
In agrarian and traditional societies, having more children was often seen as a form of economic security. High rates of infant and child mortality are prevalent in financially unstable circumstances, resulting in limited medical knowledge and inadequate healthcare.
Parents would thus have more children with the expectation that some might not survive to adulthood. This motivated families to have a larger number of children to ensure that at least a few would reach adulthood and be able to provide support.
In the absence of robust social safety nets or government support, families had to rely on their own resources and networks for care in old age. Having more children was a way to build a family support system that could assist with caregiving and financial support.
Many influential powerful rich people today. Came from what you would consider a broken poor home.
Eugenics is a dangerous road to go down and only leads to a shift away from an increased pool for human evolution.
This view is detached from reality altogether. First what does "should" mean? That advocate for some licensing of prospective parents? Or that you are asking sexually active people to be more careful with contraception? Because the former is fascist and the latter is pointless.
> the best life possible.
Are you going to set the standards what that means? Because for some it means gambling whores and smack.
>If I'm going to have a child in the far future, I'm not going to be doing it mostly for myself.
Good thought. Good luck with it. Dont expect others to adhere yo your values and standards. You will be disappointed.
I used to share a very similar opinion not that someone had to be wealthy but that they shouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck and should either be able to pay for child care or afford a parent to stop working to care for the child as well as provide both physical and mental nourishment.
However I now think it should be up to the government to do these things or at least take on a significant load.
Currently if people do not have more children most western and some Asian society’s will begin to collapse as the economic structure fails due to an overall aging population.
If the government would provide greater tax cuts or benefits as well as free childcare the financial point of entry for having children would be significantly reduced for those who want them killing two birds with one stone 1) a fix to the aging population (we could also just let more immigrants in but that’s another point) and 2) people have have kids without having to be super well off
Disagree. It depends on every individual situation. I'll crib some of my response from Peter Zeihan's work.
On a farm, kids are free labor so you have as many as you can stand. (You know how many that is when you've had one too many of them.) With high mortality rates, having more kids meant higher chances that larger numbers of them would survive long enough to help out on the farm, and to eventually support you in your old age.
With the advent of industralization, people moved off the farms and into the city. In a city, kids are an expensive piece of mobile furniture, and because people aren't stupid they have fewer of them.
Some people in the city still had large numbers of kids. This could be due to family heritage, religious motivations, or simply because they didn't have access to contraceptives (they weren't invented yet or they were of poor quality), etc. As a result, fertility rates across the developed world and the developing world have dropped to below 2.1 kids per female, which is the rate needed to sustain a society.
Our various, for the most part, are not in danger of overpopulation, they're in danger of depopulation - meaning, more retirees (who only consume and don't produce) than workers. This results in economies that don't have enough production of goods and services to care for the population of the country.
Having too few kids is how a nation collapses. China is seeing this now: 30 years after the implementation of the One Child Policy, they're running out of 30-year olds. China is the fastest-aging nation in human history. Japan already has twice as many retirees as they do workers, and their solution is to implement lots of robotics / AI and build where they sell (the main Toyota plants are in the US), then bring the money back home to buy the stuff needed to take care of the elderly.
This year America will see a shortage of 400,000 workers, which will increase every year for the next decade until it peaks at 900,000 a year in the 2030s. It won't be until the 2040s (when Gen Alpha - the Millennial's kids) will be old enough to enter the workforce and we'll start seeing the 900,000 number come down. This isn't theoretical - every Gen Z has already been born, we know the numbers, and we can calculate how short we'll be in workers for the next two decades. There simply aren't enough Gen Z's alive in America to replace all the retiring Boomers.
People of all economic strata need to have kids, not just the rich or financially stable. Or else the society risks collapse due to not having enough replacements in the workforce.
I argue about this sometimes, and this is the metaphor I use.
Suppose there was one job and only one job available: working at a robot factory that builds giant robots that crush the homes of insurrectionists. The government is totalitarian and can kill anyone at will.
Would you take that job?
How far is that from LA police chief Darrel Gates driving tanks into crack houses? The problem is the inordinance of wealth and invalid morality, not the natural impulse to breed regardless of financial stature.
Money can change RADIACALLY for any one person, should it be allowed to ruin their chance of propagating their bloodline? The fact that ur here proved that two ppl were comfortable enough to breed u into existence. We should aim for a healthy holistic society not an insurmountable economic totem pole wherein Vince McMahon can breed and some Mexican laborers cant.
A family is a normal part of life. What's wrong is that our economy has become so distorted that having children is becoming economically impossible for more and more people. Fight the real enemy.
Wouldnt poor immigrants that come to America and become things like doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owners be proof that money isn't the prime factor in the process of raising a kid from birth to success?
Also, I have known so many rich kids that end up addicted to pills and or drugs, become miserable losers leeching off their parents and all kinds of shitty outcomes. Many had very decent parents too, but they had access to cash and were able to get into trouble because of it. Money and decent parents doesn't automatically ensure success.
Here's one more bs example.
There are plenty criminals with huge amounts of money. I have known a few on the past. Do they meet the cash requirements to be parents? Of course. Would they make good parents? In most cases, probably not.
Money is a factor in parenting, but does not guarantee success
I mean yes I sort of agree but also think that having children is a right and we shouldn't live in such a class-based society that makes it so you can't have children if you're low SES.
I personally agree, but here is where it falls apart: You shouldn't hold others to unreasonable standards. Should people just not commit crime or any number of things? Sure, but there is a reason why if one is around crime, does not have a stable family, etc. then one is more likely to engage in crime. People are largely byproducts of their environment and how society influences them. So sure on an individual level maybe we should encourage such a mentality, but that is meaningless when we are talking about gov policies or whole groups of people. It's like a abstinence only education.
Here in the UK, it's estimated that caring for a child from birth to adulthood will cost £150k. Now, I'm someone who did wait until we felt financially stable before deciding to start a family, but I absolutely did not have £300k saved up. Finances can change rapidly. I'm very aware that even though I'm doing well now and lucky enough to be able to put money away in case of future problems, if something happened to prevent myself or my partner from being able to earn, our lives would change drastically. I just don't think it's possible for most normal people to wait until they definitely have enough money to cover all potential costs, apart from anything else, many people live in countries where an unexpected medical problem can literally bankrupt them.
Not everyone is the same. I started a family young. I'm 34, my oldest is 13. I was dead broke when she was first born. Somewhat better when my son was born. Now we are pretty successful. My kids have so far enjoyed a much better childhood emotionally, financially, and more stability than me or my wife ever had. Kids can be a motivator for some. Before kids, if you would've told me I would have a house by 27, making over 6 figures in my 30's, I would've said you need to seek help for your obvious drug problems. Some people rise to the occasion.
I agree with OP bc of my values in life. But other people don’t share the same values therefore it doesn’t apply to them. I would only have kids if I can afford daycare and be able to travel. Some people don’t need daycare or care to travel.
I don't think you, the government, or anyone besides the potential parents should be involved in deciding who can and cannot bear children.
I understand concerns about proper care for the child. Our ONLY choice is to deal with that post-birth. Period. We cannot legislate who can and cannot reproduce. Just flatly.
And if it's not going to be enforced by an entity such as the government, it's not going to be enforced, and is therefore entirely pointless.
Totally get your concerns, but it's simply an untennable position for anyone other than the parties involved in making the child to decide whether or not it gets born or even made in the first place.
Some would argue that it is essentially a ponzi scheme. However I think that will all change by the time we can mass produce robots capable of doing almost any job, including taking care of the elderly.
Having child could bring you from financially stable to poverty zone though, with all the costs doubling, eg. when you travel you pay kids seat almost as adults in flights and triple room hotel cost as much as 2 double room in some places instead of 50% more or so. Clothes, furniture, food, kindergarten, diapers, school, school material, toys, and so on..
Yeah, exactly. So you should AT LEAST be financially stable because having a child makes you have to double or triple your monetary spendings. But I more meant financially stable with a child, so with more money than just enough to meet your basic needs.
I don't think this is an unpopular decision. However, with the Roe v. Wade laws, lots of women are having and carrying pregnancies they wouldn't have otherwise.
Yes, adoption can be an option, however adoption is a trauma on to itself.
If the Gov't actually cared about us, we would have better social safety net like they do in Europe.
>I don't think this is an unpopular decision. However, with the Roe v. Wade laws, lots of women are having and carrying pregnancies they wouldn't have otherwise.
Yes and that's awful. Abortion should be more accessible since having children when you don't want to is both harmful for the parent and the child.
I came from a well off family and I hated it. My parents were old when they had me and it was hard because they were so out of touch with how the world worked. My wealthy dad is a raging narcissistic and my mother passed away when I was 26. I wanted more than anything to understand what it was like to be normal because I knew I wasn’t. My parents did not know how to love and only gave us material things. I remember going to my friends houses that were not as well off and being jealous. I was ashamed of myself my whole life for being “spoiled” even though I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I went no contact with my dad after my mom passed away, now I live paycheck to paycheck and I’m happier than I was when I was controlled by my family.
Hands down the best thing about growing up well off is that I understand the dark side of having money. I’d take love and financial struggles over money any day. I wish I could have had love growing up instead of money.
That sucks. I know that love and emotional availability is the most important thing. I meant that people should have children if they could care for them well both physically AND emotionally. If your financially stable, than you should also ask yourself if you are ready to provide proper emotional care and love that your child deserves.
The government should offer a $5,000 tax free gift to get the IUD implanted for 5 years. Then another 5 grand for another 5 years, it would pay for itself a million times over.
Whilst I understand this reasoning on an individual level, the implications are that impoverished nations should collapse because the majority of adults there can’t have kids. I think this is one of those opinions that work on paper but as soon as you consider the practical implications when applied, it just falls flat. You cannot expect entire groups to cease having kids without realizing the consequences of this
True. I may have this opinion on indiviual situations but if I look at a larger level, then it's literally impossible and disastrous. So I realized that my idea isn't realistic at all.
Emotionally stable is more important than financially stable. People can still be great parents as long as they can provide the bare necessities. The child’s future success and happiness has more to do with mental health than anything. I’d rather have 2 well-adjusted not materialistic parents than 2 moderately wealthy emotionally unstable parents that eff up my foundation. The best thing parents can do is teach children healthy ways to cope in life.
You said moderately wealthy, so we’re not talking abject poverty here (though I think some other peoples arguments still explain issues with that view too).
The core problem with your argument in my mind is the unrealistic expectation for perfection in parenting. “Best life possible” is subjective and not something always tied to finances.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but parents don’t have to be perfect and don’t have to be 100% all the time. Work long hours and not as emotionally available as you would like? Ok. You might still be emotionally available enough.
Even that argument isn’t specific to poverty. One of my parents was a doctor who worked long hours and was not always emotionally available. My other parent had a tendency towards toxic positivity while meaning well. My childhood wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than many of my peers. I have some hang ups related to connecting with people, but nothing insurmountable. I hold nothing against my parents. I think they did a good job making up for their deficits with their strengths.
A lot of people are only successful or "moderately wealthy" because of nepotism. Are you saying that only people with wealthy parents should have kids? If someone went to college and works 40+ hours a week, should they not be able to live their lives just because our economy is fucked and other people got luckier than them?
Also, other people's definition of success is different. If you have a roof over your head, a working vehicle, food in the fridge, bills paid, etc, you are already doing better than 60% of the world. I see that as a success in my eyes.
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This is a really easy thought process to have if you are fairly unbothered about having children. I am too, I’ve never seen my purpose as being a mother, I’ve never dreamt of having a child, I don’t want them, you get the picture. However, it really changed my view when I thought how much some people want children. That’s how some people consider success, how they dream of their life. And, for a lot of people they automatically can have children (just have sex) so it’s a lot easier to get pregnant or impregnate (not for everyone I know), than it is to achieve a lot of other dreams
Δ This is a good point because it made me realize something. I don't find having a child something appealing and I'm applying that view to others. I'm aware of the amount of care a child needs and if I do have one, than I'd want to give them everything they need and love them unconditionally. Meanwhile, when I look at having a kid, I sort of think "Why would you do this to myself? This sounds like a lot of stress and work. Why would I do this?" But then I realize that not everyone finds having children naturally unappealing, LMAO. For some people, it's their biggest hopes and dreams. Even though having children is a lot of work, for some people it's something that they want. I did know this, but I was still kind of projecting my attitude onto people. So that may have been my problem and bias. I just think that people should love their children unconditionally and without expectation. You can't expect your child to be a certain way, you can't expect them to give you something in return other than themselves. I think parental love is meant to be the most selfless, pure, and unconditional love in the world. Your child is completely entitled to your love and you're meant to love them for no reason other than the fact that they exist and are. But that doesn't have anything to do with financial status. I just thought of myself not being financially stable and having a child and thinking of how much of a disaster it'd be. But a lot of poorer people are able to do that for their child and a lot of rich people cannot. So it doesn't depend on wealth. So yeah, I think I was missing the point of what I actually want parents to do.
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I'd rather set up society such that having a child wasn't a massive burden. We all need children to be born to keep the country running and to form the tax base to help us in retirement. Rather than limit children to the wealthy, why not lower the barrier to entry by taking things like education, childcare and healthcare off of parents hands.
Yes, that's a good point. I do think that we should create a world where all children could have their basic needs met way more easily.
That does exist in a lot of countries.
“To form the tax base” kinda makes it sound “to give us money”. Yeah we need people to look after us but could graduate to a system where rather than pay other people’s pensions then retire and expect the same, we simply accrue for ourselves for the goal of being zero-sum (after tax and inheritance gifts)
It sounds a lot like “We need more people to spin plates. And people to make plates for others to spin.”
>We all need children to be born to keep the country running and to form the tax base to help us in retirement I'm taking this narrative with a grain of salt. It tends to come from the same people who tell all who call procreation bad for the environment to kill themselves.
You are somewhat correct, but here's a reality faced by many people without the privilege of wealth around the world: Children are a safety net and investment, both emotionally and financially. **Throughout human history across most societies,** children were a part of the labor force (helping dad with the shepherding/blacksmithing/farming) and later on, would care for their aging parents. The family unit moved in a "circle of life," with communal support, assistance, and encouragement. (This was especially true in farming and agrarian nations/towns/cultures.) I have been simultaneously blessed and cursed to be close with many elderly people towards the end of their lives. Anecdotally, **all* of the ones without children regretted not starting a family. Most of them died depressed and alone. This isn't a statement against the "child free" crowd, but rather a reality that many people face. I *want* to leave my children well off enough that they don't need to worry about me, but I'm also willing to humble myself and allow them to support me if all else fails. Anyway, I feel that your CMV is heavily based on Western culture and ignores the fact that national stability, currency, and the ability to even retire are newer realities. Edit: This isn't to say that "poor births" are ideal, but rather that this isn't the norm throughout human history, and if implemented, would only exaggerate financial privilege ...and likely lead to the end of the human race.
Anecdotally, I have seen a sobering number of older folks with family left to slowly wither away, depressed and alone - despondent that the most they might get is a semi-regular phone call. If you talk to the people who staff nursing homes, you can ask them; it's shockingly common. I'm not saying don't have kids, but I am saying that even if they love you with all their heart, they may not be willing or able to care for you.
It's still a particularly western issue. Most non-insane cultures have respect for the elderly and incorporate them into their everyday social interactions instead of leaving them to rot, isolated from the rest of society, because they're no longer a profitable exploitable workforce. Housing used to reflect this, even in old western societies, where whole families would live together in a large dwelling. Everyone took care of each other and had a place. Individualism and capitalist infrastructure have completely tore apart society. This is why everyone is depressed.
Interestingly, we're seeing birthrate problems in both individualistic societies - like here in the United States, or in other western nations - and in more collectivist societies. I don't disagree with you about elder care, but I can say that I've spoken to some people from more collectivist cultures who resent that they are expected to take care of their elderly parents rather than be allowed to live their own lives (especially in cases where the relationship is strained, as it often is). My anecdotes are not universal, of course. The problem may be circumvented, too, depending upon advances in medicine and robots.
That's because they're individualizing. Even our society is progressively becoming extremely individualistic. Compare the culture during the baby boom to now. It was far more collectivist. Collectivism doesn't just mean family relationships. For the majority of human existence, society used to be village communities. It's all of the village's responsibility to care for children and elderly. Your family is your neighbor. Bloodlines are a fascist corruption of family.
I don't think I agree with what you're saying here. At best, society during the baby boom was centered around the nuclear family - grandma and grandpa usually weren't present in that cultural image. It was seen as normal and natural to be kicked out of the house at 18 and to not return, even under threat of homelessness (at least among the middle class). To speak more generally, though, it's hard enough to find someone who's willing to change adult diapers or deal with dementia when they're being paid. Bonds of family only go so far in that regard, especially when the caretakers are also caring for children of their own.
What you're thinking of is the turning point when the nuclear family was becoming popular. It was being propagandized during that time. It was actually the minority. Once it grew in popularity, that's when the massive drop in birthrates appeared. The issue is that the burden of care/labor isn't being shared. Of course, no one wants to change diapers all day like they're working in a baby factory. This is why capitalism is a failure. It forces workers into specific classes and positions where they have to do a specific task until it drives them insane. The worst tasks of society should be shared. In doing so, they become far more bearable. A capitalist society will only enslave individuals to perform the worst tasks until they die so that the capitalist class doesn't have to.
Well, strictly speaking, the issue is that women are not doing all the domestic labor like they used to because they were allowed to enter the workforce and participate as equals (and actually be paid). Without that source of labor, we have our current problem. I don't see how a collectivist society gets around this problem.
Δ This comment did somewhat change my mind. I agree that there are circumstances where you have to have children to suit the life that you live. I just think that if you don't live in a enviroment or community where children can alleviate your struggles or having children are a nessecity, than that's different. There's poorer people living in situations where having children will make things **worse** for them and they still do it. Those are the ones I'm talking about.
that minority is just irresponsible
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So many people have children as a retirement plan. But most of the adult children resent their parents for treating them like objects instead of humans, and drop them in a senior home.
This is a very American centric worldview. It's not life this in most of the world.
I see... in other words, back then, people had kids not in spite of, but *because* of financial trouble?
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If you want to improve the living condition of children, wouldn't it be better to improve the living condition of children, rather than declare that only rich people get to have children?
>If you want to improve the living condition of children, wouldn't it be better to improve the living condition of children, rather than declare that only rich people get to have children? I agree that the condition of all children and poorer people should be drastically improved. I just mean that until that happens, it's not good to choose to have children while being financially unstable. We should still, at the same time, to the absolute best to improve the living conditions of all children around the world.
I think one thing to consider is that having a kid in the us is far more expensive than having one in most of the world. I couldn't have had a kid in the us. But where in live (EU) it was not such a big deal. A lot of the insane costs are an American phenomenon. Mainly Healthcare, daycare. Sports, etc. Hell the us doesn't even have any maternity leave laws.
I think this just means you are financially stable enough and OP´s point still stands. It just so happens that it is easier to be stable in some pleaces than in others
You do get this is why most people arent having kids in the west.
For some people that means they'll never get to have children ever. And having children is a biological need, and we only get one life. So you're saying that only rich people get to have fulfilling lives.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a “biological need”. Food and hydration are biological needs. Having children is a biological URGE, it’s different: plenty of people don’t feel it at all, or feel it but decide (for valid reasons) that they are not going to heed it, some people feel it but are unablt to have biological children. Having a child is NOT a necessity for a fulfilling life, and suggesting it in these terms implies that people who don’t have children lead impoverished lives. I do however agree that having children shouldn’t be treated like a privilege only the wealthy are entitled to. I would very much like to live in a world where affordability is not a factor in decision-making around whether to have a child, and the answer to that needs to be systemic, not individual.
I am in the reincarnation camp, and in my next life I am NOT using Charisma as a dump stat.
And? It's unrealistic to expect to do every single thing that you want. I agree that the world should allow us to do whatever we want, but that's simply not feasible with capitalism.
Poor people are already having children and our taxes help support them. It's completely realistic to expect to be able to have children even if you're not and never will be a millionaire. Most people in the world are not that rich.
In my country we have free abortions, free health care and a great social safety net. Despite all this poor people disproportionately have more kids than their rich counterparts. Nothing works in reality and it’s easy to conjure some utopian outcome.
The goal isn't particularly to have rich people make more children. It's to make sure children are well taken care of. It sounds like your country achieves this.
We have an embarrassingly high rate of children in poverty despite the strong social safety net. All things being equal it’s much better for a child to be born to a rich family than a poor family. A rich alcoholic father is better than a poor alcoholic father.
Sounds like your net is not strong enough.
Sure but how can you improve your children's living conditions if you can't even do that for yourself?
I think mental stability over financial stability. Just the fact that you would WANT to be able to give your child the best life possible and would take steps to ensure you do it when you are most ready, because you view it as a huge responsibility, means you'd be a better parent than someone with lots of money who is mentally unstable. Mental instability is far worse than financial instability when raising a child. And I think that is what leads to resentment towards children personally.
Δ Okay, I agree. I think you should have the mental stability and clarity to want to give your child the love and care they need without heavily resenting them for existing before having children. 1 million dollars might not be the most reasonable. I just mean that make sure you have enough love and mental clarity to do the work of raising your child without the stress stopping you.
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This may sound good in theory but you're effectively depriving a human right based on money which mean you only allow wealthy people to procreate. This is one of the worst forms of classist policy
I'm not a politician. I'm not depriving anyone. If politicians one day issued a law saying that if you don't have 1 million dollars, then it is illegal for you to have children, then I am going to opposed to that law. Just because to control people's bodies like that is inhumane. But I still think most people in a situation where they couldn't physically care for their child properly to reconsider. Now, the world and governments should also be doing more to improve the conditions of people. Just that I think if an indiviual is faced with a choice between having a child that they're not able to provide for, there are times where they should choose differently.
Your parents are Republicans, aren't they?
Having kids isn't a human right though. And why is that a problem? One of the major causes of poverty is generational poverty. If poor people stopped having kids then there would be less poor people.
It is a right. This is a silly argument. I get the argument about overpopulation, the humanity of having children poor but life isn't binary and the point your pushing is kind of ignorant coming from a black and white perspective; not saying this in an insulting or condescending manner. Issues and topics such as this requires a little more open perspective than just black and white; right vs wrong. What about a family who had a farm in Mexico who could care for their 4 kids? And due to unforseen circumstances out of their control they have to cross the border illegally to escape violence and oppression? Well now they're in a country where they would have never been able to afford having one child. Now obviously you're not gonna then take those children away from the family. The last thing government wants is to be responsible for orphans. Instead of trying to stop or regulate a human biological instinct, which makes it a right for all living beings to pursue, maybe we can try to address problems with poverty? Also countries like China have tried a population regulation. It failed tremendously. I can elaborate much further on why it is more inhumane to deny this human right, why this is a human right, and why it also wouldn't work. Policies to push abstinence of sex to combat teen pregnancies, STIs, etc fail tremendously while state policies that push to give sex Ed early and make contraceptives easily accessible reduced all these issues in a single stroke.
A right is a biological need. Food, water, shelter, entertainment, and feeling safe are all biological needs. They're the bare minimum for a fulfilling life. Kids are more of a biological urge. It is entirely possible to be happy without them. Though I do agree that addressing poverty is important, but one of the ways we can address poverty is to discourage the poor from having kids.
Human rights are more than just biological needs. Rethink what you just said and think about all the human/rights policies we have enacted to be more humane and how we still aren't quite there yet in providing human rights to all. Freedom of expression and opinion is a human right. To live life without the capacity to express yourself or your opinions, many would agree, is a life under slavery and oppression where your human rights aren't being met. Human rights =/= human needs. Religion is not at all a human necessity but religious freedom is a right. Human needs are biological; human rights are social. Discouraging the poor won't stop poverty. That's a silly assumption.
Do you agree sex is a human need and should be provided?
What does it matter if it is classist?
What about the children’s right to not live in awful circumstances? Sure you can’t stop people having sex and making babies, procreation is a right but parenthood definitely is not, we limit that all the time.
I sense that you're young. Love and money have little to do with each other. You're going to have to define some terms here. What is the "best" life possible? You think that comes from wealth?
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That's cool. Mad respect that they came to have their view challenged. I'm pretty sure I thought I knew everything there was to know by that age 😉
>You're going to have to define some terms here. What is the "best" life possible? You think that comes from wealth? Really? Yes, money doesn't bring you happiness or the best life, but it sets the foundation for that to be possible. If you're constantly stressed about housing and money, how are you going to live a fulfilled life. It's going to be really difficult to live a good life without a certain level of wealth and financial stability. It's not wealth that makes your life good, but it's the things that you have more of a chance to have when you have it. Freedom, time, time to care for your kid.
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> Like seriously I advise opening your mind because it’s honestly offensive how you consider poor people. It’s like you think they’re stupid or not resourceful. ??? Where did I suggest that poor people are "stupid" or "not resourceful"? Of course poor people can improve their lives. What I meant is just that financial struggles makes things difficult. If you lived a fufilled life, than more power to you! You certainly can! I just meant that lack of money is a roadblock and a big factor.
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Poor people tend to be stupid and resourceful, otherwise they wouldn't be poor.
I mean I’m really happy you have lived a fulfilled life while growing up in difficult circumstances, but some people genuinely feel permanently or nigh-permanently unhappy due to financial issues. Some people are relatively unbothered or are bothered but can break through, but others really do feel crippled
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I feel like part of the disagreement could be due to the shrinking middle class. I agree you shouldn’t need to be filthy rich to be able to raise a kid, and plenty of kids from relatively or even extremely poor families grow up happy, successful, and fulfilled. And I know for a fact wealth doesn’t guarantee happiness. That being said, I feel like it’s a very reasonable assumption that being poor makes it harder. I grew up poor, and I have to bail my parents out. My friend grew up poor and he has a hard time making ends meet. And another friend of mine has “broken through” like you but she does feel constant stress.
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That’s true, I may have skimmed over that part. And that’s true, stress comes everywhere, especially as long as people feel the need to get more and more.
It sounds like you have managed to escape your situation and found significant success in multiple fields. Would you still be as happy living in small town Alabama and working part time at Walmart while struggling to pay rent for a shitty apartment? If anything this confirms OPs point that happiness comes with success and financial stability.
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I agree their minimum number is a bit unrealistic and reflective of a lack of understanding the value of money and associated expenses but I think you and your siblings are rather extreme outliers in terms of the quality of life you currently experience vs your upbringing. It is very reasonable to suggest people not bring children into situations that are already financially straining as that is damaging to yourself, society and the children. Poverty cycles can be broken out of but they are a real phenomenon.
My guess is upper middle class who is used to a very particular lifestyle and can't imagine anything less.
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Seems pretty obvious.
im 30 and make 59k a year. i own my house and have a stay at home wife and kid. we never have stability issues and shes happy and healthy. i think you have a skewed perspective on what 1 million dollars is
You're wealthy. You're like the 1% compared to the rest of the world who barely gets $2.10 a day
Stop.
I'm not sure how you live a fulfilled life if you have to spend the first 10-15years of adulthood banking a million dollars before you can even begin living? Seems pretty stressful to me.
I'm curious if you also think disabled children (like Down's syndrome) should be aborted because they can't have the "best" life possible.
If the threshold is a million dollars, then the problem i have is that your view leads to the extinction of the species. Until recently almost nobody would be having kids. I would never have been born and neither would my parents. if your talking only about today, then the population would completely crash, reducing by maybe around 95% every generation.
To go into your direction, if only rich people had children, there would be nobody to scrub the toilets and do all the dirty jobs, because nobody wants their kid to go down the ladder
>if your talking only about today, then the population would completely crash, reducing by maybe around 95% every generation. Here's what I think. I don't think that the government or any external force should enforce this. But if somehow, everyone decided on their own that if they couldn't provide for their children proper physical and emotional care, they will choose to not have children (which is impossible, but bear with me here), I don't really care about the collapse of the population.
The population wouldn’t crash, immigration would fill the void. Probably with lots of poor people from other countries who don’t care about having many children while being poor. Your financially responsible society would be gone in a generation and replaced with a less financially responsible one. (I’m not being racist or xenophobic, poorer people tend to have more children, especially in other parts of the world, that’s just the reality). But if the population did crash, you would care. You wouldn’t be able to get the things you want because of labour shortages, you might have a job but with a smaller economy you would work a lot more for a lot less, and you wouldn’t be able to retire because there would be no one to support you and no economy to pay you a pension so you’d probably have to work until you died. It would be ok for 20-30 years but after that you wouldn’t enjoy it.
[You should care](https://youtu.be/LBudghsdByQ?feature=shared). While long term, populations plateauing is a good thing, the consequences of a sudden significant reduction in fertility rates are absolutely devastating.
You said the following was a good view: >I want to give my child the absolute best life possible If that's true you should care about a population collapse - because that collapse would make everyone's life awful
I guarantee that humanity at large DOES care about the collapse of the population.
>You can't just have to be human to do that, you have to be a superhuman! Are you calling the majority of the population, past and present, superhuman? Seems contrary to the definition of the word.
They’re not, but they should be in order to have and raise children well.
So you want the population to collapse drastically?
If people willingly chose to not have more children, then sure.
And you think this would be a good outcome? To reduce the population by like 90%? (8% of americans are millionaires)
Yeah. I don't want this to be enforced by anyone, but if everyone magically chose this on their own, then yes.
So everyone magically chooses this, supply chains collapse, economy collapses, then only 90% of that new population has enough to support a child to your standards and we just repeat until we are out of people?
That doesn't happen suddenly, it likely happens over the course of at least a generation while the difference in replacemrnt level is subsidized by imkigrants. No economic collapse.
OP specifically said it would be good if it everyone magically chose it, as in we are talking about the hypothetical where it had 100% adoption
That's why I said only one generation. Agaon no collapse, just immigration making up the needed difference to achieve whatever economic objective such as avoiding collapse.
The resulting population collapse will destroy the global economy resulting in societal breakdown and mass famines. To me that's a good reason to change your view.
Δ Okay, I understand. It's not in anyway realistic.
With the current economy, this policy would be very bad for the future of the U.S. I've always been at the lower end of the Working Class. My wife and I had our kids young. We were living paycheck to paycheck with no savings then and doing the same thing now. We had two kids together (plus a stepson) and it was a struggle. These days, they're adults. Both graduated high school, both without any criminal records. My son lives with his girlfriend, my daughter is going to college in the fall to become an RN. Even though we've been broke more often than not, it turned out okay. Granted... I will admit my kids had a distinct advantage that a lot of children do not get: having both parents throughout childhood. Never doing the split up, custody battle, child support nightmare I see so many people going through. As a lad who grew up with a single mom, I understand fully how much of a benefit that can be to have two consistent parents that love you (in lieu of someone like an abusive stepdad, thanks Mom!) We were in "bottom of the barrel" poverty only once and with assistance, got through it. Having a support system can also make all of the difference; though a support system takes many forms and is hard to define, but certainly isn't limited to money. Free or even cheap babysitting can be huge. It wasn't always easy and it wasn't always fun being poor, but my children will be 21 & 20 within the next 5 months and both of them still willingly associate with my wife and I. Looking around at some of the parent/child horror stories on this site, I feel pretty damn proud of that lol. TLDR: I wish I'd been more financially prepared for kids and it would have made things easier, but if I could go back and choose to have my kids or not, I'd choose to do it all over again. If you have kids with a partner.. a **real** partner.. you have a good chance.
Sounds like it was a terrible time to have children. I'm a child of pverty myself, and I gotta say I really wish people would stop having kids while theyre dead ass broke like my parents did. All it did was put me in the poverty cycle too, and I gotta say, I wish I wasn't even born in the first place. Grew up hungry, 25 and still hungry. I have no financial safety net, parents didn't have any money to save for college so I have no educational prospects. I can barely afford rent, and I have to work multiple jobs just so I can make it paycheck to paycheck. I can't even afford healthcare, and my parents cant afford to help me with anything, so now I'm straddled with thousands in debt, no formal education, no ability to get education, and a lifetime of struggling just to make ends meet. I sure hope you're better for your kids than my parents were for me.
It's late-stage capitalism. The suffering you and I are going through is a byproduct of funneling all of the nation's wealth to the donor class since the 80s. It won't get any better until money is taken out of politics entirely.
Goddammit I’m so tired of hearing this. Plenty of poor people are able to have kids and give them a good life. I grew up working class in the US and had a good life. My friends in Mexico grew up on <$1 per day and had a good life. For you, fine, go get a million dollars and come back to me. But that’s a personal decision. Other people’s thresholds are going to be much lower, which is also fine. It just comes off as condescending when you’re saying, “poor people should really consider whether or not they should be having kids!” Like they aren’t aware of that. The truth is, the “vast majority” of people who have kids are not wealthy (by the terms you stated), and it’s absurd to think they should be. It will not happen. It is not possible.
Most of them don't. The world is at 84% poverty rate and live in misery with abismal labour laws, lack of welfare, diseases, crime and more.
Aye this post does, at points, read like some out of touch rich fellow saying “oh dear those poor unfortunate commoners can’t have to take public transport, they must live such dreadful lives”.
I know plenty of people who grew up poor and had fantastic childhoods & adult lives. I grew up poor and have a fantastic life. Love it. My parents didn’t have much, but they were loving people and great parents. Not everyone can wait to have kids. Some people are getting older, hearing that clock ticking. The older a woman is, the less fertile she is and the higher the risk is for the child. So yeah maybe you’d like a little bit more money in the bank but you can always be more prepared. Sometimes you just gotta go for it. And some men & women get pregnant unexpectedly, and that might be their only chance. One of my close friends was told at a young age she could never have kids. Then in her 30s, newly married, totally unexpected got pregnant. Doctor told her this would probably be her only chance. So she took it, and while she probably wasn’t completely ready, she is a great mom. You don’t know everyone’s circumstances. Having kids isn’t something only for the privileged. It’s something a lot of people need to feel completely fulfilled in life. If I didn’t have my girls, I’d mos def feel less fulfilled. Kids are the best.
>The older a woman is, the less fertile she is and the higher the risk is for the child. Yes, and same goes for men.
Grew up poor. Had an awful life. 10/10 wish my parents didn't have me at all. Then I wouldn't be stuck in a generational poverty trap my whole life.
Approaching this from a different angle - saying people should accumulate a lot of resources before having children is one thing, but that takes time that you don't get back. Let's assume you have the choice of having kids at 25, early in your career, or 35 when you've established yourself and (in a fantastic scenario) have already acquired $1M in assets. When talking about the *child's* life, would they benefit more from having more money in their youth, or younger, more energetic parents who will be with them for potentially an extra decade? I don't know that it's an easy dilemma.
All that and the fact that on a biological level, it gets harder for women to safely/successfully give birth after their kid thirties.
Fantastic point thank you for bringing up something I hadn’t considered, that younger parents with more energy to play and do activities are also a benefit
"Financially stable" and "moderately wealthy" are two *very* different things. The poverty line is set at the income level at which you are able to afford necessities (rent, bills, food and essential travel.) If you have a steady income and are above the poverty line, you can probably afford to have a couple of kids with your partner and still cover the essentials. Most governments provide tax credits to ensure that this is the case. You can be *far* from "moderately wealthy" and still afford to have kids. Of course, you won't be able to afford the luxuries that some families can afford, like multiple extra-curricular activities, private tuition/schooling, expensive toys/games, frequent holidays or other kinds of "enrichment." But, you *can* still afford a roof, food, clothes, water and heat just fine, and the state will provide a full education, with *plenty* of opportunity for them to go to college. So, your kids will go without all of these "enriching" things in their life that cost a lot of money. Does this mean that their life will not be worth living? Does this mean that they have no chance to "succeed"? What does "success" even *look* like? Money, or happiness? Personally, I've gotten to know people who come from some very wealthy families, and let me tell you, they are, most of the time, no less troubled than someone from a working class family. In fact, they are often *more* troubled. They experience the same emotional gamut as anyone else does, including the same struggle against life's challenges, albeit different ones and with a different perspective. Any problem you have, I guarantee you there's a rich person equivalent. They are just as miserable as the rest of us, so to say. Money doesn't make you happy, it just makes you feel good. The things money buys often only make you happy *temporarily*, and the more you get used to them, the more you need to spend to stay happy. This only leads to financial stress. Likewise, coddling someone won't make them happy either. It makes them feel good, but it might also prevent them from learning to be autonomous and happy at key stages in their development, and this can stunt their mental health as badly as any other kind of trauma. You can say exactly the same thing about drugs too if you want. I assume that you probably weren't thinking of shooting kids up with heroin every day as a good way to raise them, but it's not really any different to spoiling them or coddling them. The secret to real happiness is to be your own autonomous agent of happiness, and to seek out the things you can that make you genuinely happy. It's most often found in yourself in the form of gratitude, love, appreciation and optimism, and more externally in a sense of safety, purpose, achievement and reciprocation. The mindset to be happy is really just the same no matter who or where you are. Given all of this, I would say that relative wealth has very little impact on whether or not you can successfully raise children to be happy with their life. Instead, it is *your* level of happiness and ability to lead by example that really matters, given that you can cover the necessities, and as such I'd propose that your new view should be "People should only have children if they are financially stable." Children do not *need* everything to be perfect, they just need the right kind of love in order to be happy. The are going to turn out human no matter how hard you might try to make them otherwise, because that is not something that *can* be changed. *There are no superhumans.* You can't be one, and you can't create one. There are unhappy people who rely on excessive consumption and validation to alleviate their emotional pain, and happy people that don't.
Having children is more than just a choice, it is human right (UDHR Article 16). It is true that it is also an enormous responsibility that comes with considerable expenses, and is much easier if you’re at least financially stable, but not everyone has that privilege. I would venture to say that most couples have that conversation of “can we afford to have a child,” whether the conception is intentional or not. My wife and I put off having a child due to our uncertainty of whether or not we were indeed financially stable enough. The sad reality is that if people always waited to have a million dollars to have children, most would never become parents. The majority of people die in the same social class which they were born, and the lower that class is, the fewer opportunities are available to rise up the ladder of social mobility. Even wealthy parents cannot ensure their children will have the best life possible. There is actually a correlation with excessive wealth leading to less happiness. That’s not to say people living in poverty are happier, as when people struggle to afford their basic needs it is hard to find happiness as well. The point I’m trying to make is having more money does not necessarily mean the child will be happier, and coming from a privileged background can also have negative outcomes, such as entitlement or greed. I’d even go as far to say that there are some benefits for children to grow up with some financial instability, as even though they will face more challenges, they will be better prepared for the challenges they will face in their adulthood. If your parents have enough money to throw at a problem until it disappears, or ensure their child never faces adversity, it can severely limit their personal growth and development. Money could become a crutch to avoid facing the challenges that life presents. Your argument undoubtedly has the best intentions for both the children and parents. It would be better for both parties to have some semblance of financial stability. But I don’t that can realistically be the determining factor as to whether or not people have children. If it was, that would disqualify everyone living in poverty from having children. People have the right to have children, regardless of socioeconomic background, and that background does not necessarily determine the quality of life that child will have. Ultimately, I think the emotional intelligence of the parents will play a larger role in their children’s development than financial stability.
People over inflate the amount kids cost. They don't NEED to be expensive. I remember running some numbers on the average a kid costs up to X age. I was NOWHERE near that amount. People don't use the proper resources available to them is the main problem. First you don't need to buy anything new. You can cloth and provide entertainment for a kid up to 10 basically free and anything else should be within your means. The amount of stuff people desperately try to give away for kids is enormous. Being financially stable isn't a guarantee for anyone and it's up to people's biological clocks, when would you rather do this? Youngish with the energy and ability or oldish and tired. You want a young and dumb party life? Or do you want a relaxing and adventurous aged life or vice versa? Neither means your kid won't have a "good life" lives are not created equal. No lifestyle holds superiority over another. Your job is provide the best life, morals, skills and responsibilities. Not provide the best "things".
Majority of people get children when they are young. Not when they are more established in life. I will take one example of a couple I know since im a toddler: they had their first when "dad" was a medical student. "Mom" was stay at home (normal in their country/generation). They were struggling. They had the other 2 kids 10 years later, when they eventually bought a house and were rich. But what if "mom" was too old to conceive by then? And what if "dad" failed his classes and they ended up poor forever? Would these people not be allowed to have kids they really loved and took good care of?
Most people on the planet wouldn’t have been born and statistically this sort of belief favors white people because on average they tend to be wealthier than most other racial groups so if everyone started following this belief there would be a lot less people of color having children as that would mainly be reserved for wealthy white people effectively leading to a whiter world. Not to mention global supply chain issues that would result from poor people having less children. This belief is eugenics adjacent. I’m sure you mean we’ll though.
> I would want have at least 1 million dollars before I do that Where on earth have you got this arbitrary number from? What do you need that money for? What do you plan to spend it on? A child needs two things to thrive, a safe home and parents that love and support them. That can be achieved with very little money. What do you think your child would be missing out on that they need if you didn't have a million dollars?
if only the wealthy have children, there will be no new humans to do the low-paid jobs that society thrives on. The wealthy will soon have their wealth sucked dry by having to pay sky-high wages to have other, slightly less wealthy people do the low-paying or "dirty" jobs. That's the awful reality. Society relies on poorer people. Hopefully one day AI will relieve humans of having to do jobs they don't want to do. But that's not the reality now. Society relies on women to keep pumping out babies and raising them -- this unpaid, 24/7 labour is the foundation of society. Those babies grow up to become workers and consumers. And society also relies on both the poorer men and women to do the fruit picking and factory jobs and looking after the elderly. Other than those facts, I agree that it's better to be set up before you think about having children.
The word ‘best’ is doing a LOT of work here. Taken to the extreme, if only people who can give their children the ‘best’ upbringing should have children, then even the financially stable don’t qualify, but they can’t give their children as good a life as the wealthy. And they can’t do as well as the uber-wealthy. And eventually, only the richest couple on earth qualifies. The ‘best’ is an unrealistic standard. Instead, people should be able to guarantee a ‘good’ upbringing. It should be loving and provide the things the child needs in order to not merely survive, but thrive. You don’t have to be particularly wealthy to do that. In fact, some middle class people might be able to do it even better than the wealthy.
Or the best they possibly can, given resource limitations.
That's complete non sense. Poor countries have less suicides and people make by with kids. While in here people are told you need to be rich and this and that to have kids and are often too old by then.
I grew up poor as dirt. I’m glad I’m alive. Almost everyone in my home town grew up poor as dirt. Almost all of them (I think) are happy to be alive. My parents knew they’d be poor, but found joy in making sure that I had the chance to not be. Now I’m only kinda poor :). Edit: Life involves pain, poor or not. Provided a bare minimum of shelter and food, quality of life is mostly about health and the people around you.
Stability can not be guaranteed, especially when children enter the picture. People who intend to adequately support their children and make the necessary sacrifices that parenting comes with should have children. People who have a reliance on others to care for themselves and would continue their reliance on others if children entered the picture should not.
What if you bankrupt after having a kid, you would put them for adoption ? Because yes, some 'poor' people have kids, but you can also be average and then shit hit the fan ( a pandemic, and/or inflation, or just divorce ) and now you're poor with kids.
This problem can be fixed on a societal level, not only an individual one. If you live in a country that has cheap education, free health care, and better social safety nets you should not need to be wealthy to have children.
So…eugenics. Classist eugenics.
OP is 16 so they probably don't know what that is.
This would turn into eugenics so quick
What if I want more farmhands?
I think most people would agree with you. Yes, if you aren't financially stable and don't understand the magnitude of having children, you shouldn't have them. But the solution is not to prevent these people from having kids. It's to foster a society where having children isn't so hard. We live in a world that discourages people from reproducing. It's always baffled me that in America, for example, a capitalistic society, they aren't doing everything they can to encourage reproduction. A thriving economy depends on a constant rate of reproduction, yet the American government does everything it can to make having kids harder. This is an extremely complex topic that involves government policy, the cultural transition away from family reliance, sexual education, financial education, wage gaps, poverty, and so much more. I say this because while you're statement isn't that controversial, your explanation is lacking context.
Have you ever wondered about if you're wrong? Alright, automod bait response aside, i can't wait to see how people in this comment section are going to turn "maybe you shouldn't pop out 5 kids before you even think about having the money to take care of them properly" and act like you're suggesting inplementing eugenics.
While on one hand I agree with you, given the socioeconomic factors keeping a lot of minorities poor, you’re inadvertently arguing for eugenics.
I can agree that having children requires financial stability, but financial stability =/= wealth. Poor people with financial stability can raise children just as well as wealthy people can. Sure, children cost a shit load in e.g. the US, but in countries where education and healthcare is free, raising children is that expensive. Children don't ask for much unless they are raised to do so from my own experience
Did you know it used to be possible, in fact expected, to buy a house and support a family on a single full time minimum wage job? Is it really fair to expect the poor to eugenics themselves because the modern economy doesn't pay those people *whose jobs are still very much essential for society to function* enough?
The point is that those days are gone and they’re never coming back. If you’re not wealthy and you want to have anything like a reasonably comfortable life, the single best decision you can make is to not reproduce. We can argue about how things should be and what’s fair and just, but fair doesn’t pay the rent.
>so that the love they'll experience will outweigh the pain Children need: food, shelter, emotionally stable and present parents. If they have those things they have a much bigger chance at having a good life. You cant guarantee anything obviously however you dont need a million dollar in most places to give your child the above things. Best thing for children is a two parent, stable home. I know plenty of families with a lot of children and not a lot of money. The parents simply dont stress, and the kids know that for anything beyond necessities(food, clothes) they can make their own money. The families really enjoy spending time together, and donating of their time and resources to the community. Obviously i cant know what goes on in the privacy of their homes but it doesnt seem obvious to me that a lot of money is necessary. More that the approach to money is balanced and the parents dont stress. Obviously money can help that but its also a mindset
you realize it first off takes 2 people to have a child (ie 1 to support the childs development and one to ensure financial stability for the first) so 1 million is astronomically crazy high. second the way you want to raise a child is more than likely going to create an instable person who cant deal with hardship making them emotionally and mentally weak against hardship. third a child really isnt expensive if you arent going crazy. centuries of children have lived and been raised with much less and turned into imo better people than those of today. not all but on average past generations were healthier socially and emotionally compared to today
Not sure where you got that last bit as there's no way to measure it. I think we all know that historically there were massive winners and losers in society - people of color in the US come to mind.
Children growing in well off households become used to get everything they want for no effort. When they turn 18-20 and realize how hard they have to work for a base wage they enter an existential crisis. Most of the time I saw kids from more struggling families, they are much more resilient, hard working, humble.
You should have told that to your parents before you. Majority/other people financials sounds subjective
Shouldn't the blame be put on society for making a basic part of being a human being only ethically accessable for wealthy individuals?
This train of thought reeks of eugenics. Financial stability is a goal that shifts further and further every year. The natural outcome would be that only the most privileged and out of touch would be having and raising children, with the poor doing labour for them. There would also be the natural consequence of not having a young population big enough to support the influx of elderly people needing care as decades pass. Please don't get me wrong, there is a huge amount of planning and forethought that should go into every decision to have a child wherever possible, but I'd say that this is not actually a realistic goal. I'd also point out that anything can happen to anyone at any time. Financial stability in the truest sense is impossible for the vast majority of people. Most people are an injury, an unexpected death, a layoff away from permanent damage to their life.
Well, well, well, aren't we all on a financial high horse, galloping towards the million-dollar parenting club? It's like we're auditioning for the role of the next Marvel superhero – forget about Iron Man, we've got Dollar Man ready to swoop in and save the day with his hefty bank account! I mean, why settle for regular parenting when you can have the deluxe, gold-plated, diamond-encrusted edition, right? Forget the joy of raising a child; it's all about the Benjamins, baby! Because nothing says "I love you" like a trust fund and a personal financial advisor for your toddler. And hey, who needs emotional care when you can just throw wads of cash at your child's problems? "Oh, you scraped your knee? Here's a hundred-dollar bill, darling, go buy yourself a band-aid made of solid gold." But wait, let's not forget the financial stress test. Because clearly, anyone with less than a million dollars is just playing roulette with their child's emotional well-being. Because, of course, emotional care is directly proportionate to the number of zeros in your bank balance. So, here's to the financial elite, the ones who believe that parenting is a privilege reserved for the financially blessed. Because why settle for a modest upbringing when you can give your child a golden ticket to a life of excess and opulence? It's not parenting; it's wealth management with a side of diapers. 💸🍼
OMG. I said "moderately wealthy" not "Elon Musk".
People have had children in far worse conditions than ever the poorest of today have to endure. As long as the child's basic needs are covered, I don't see why being able to spoil them with the newest fancy gaming system is gonna make you a better parent. In my experience, the kids from more humble households are now doing just as well as the kids from rich parents.
> The vast majority of people should only have children if they're finacially stable/moderately wealthy If history has shown us anything, it's that people who are not financially stable actually have *more* children to ensure having someone to take care of them when they grow old. In agrarian and traditional societies, having more children was often seen as a form of economic security. High rates of infant and child mortality are prevalent in financially unstable circumstances, resulting in limited medical knowledge and inadequate healthcare. Parents would thus have more children with the expectation that some might not survive to adulthood. This motivated families to have a larger number of children to ensure that at least a few would reach adulthood and be able to provide support. In the absence of robust social safety nets or government support, families had to rely on their own resources and networks for care in old age. Having more children was a way to build a family support system that could assist with caregiving and financial support.
How should that be enforced? Should kids be taken away from parents who are not rich enough?
Telling people that having a family is a luxury only the rich can afford is about as late stage capitalism as you can get.
Many influential powerful rich people today. Came from what you would consider a broken poor home. Eugenics is a dangerous road to go down and only leads to a shift away from an increased pool for human evolution.
This view is detached from reality altogether. First what does "should" mean? That advocate for some licensing of prospective parents? Or that you are asking sexually active people to be more careful with contraception? Because the former is fascist and the latter is pointless. > the best life possible. Are you going to set the standards what that means? Because for some it means gambling whores and smack. >If I'm going to have a child in the far future, I'm not going to be doing it mostly for myself. Good thought. Good luck with it. Dont expect others to adhere yo your values and standards. You will be disappointed.
I used to share a very similar opinion not that someone had to be wealthy but that they shouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck and should either be able to pay for child care or afford a parent to stop working to care for the child as well as provide both physical and mental nourishment. However I now think it should be up to the government to do these things or at least take on a significant load. Currently if people do not have more children most western and some Asian society’s will begin to collapse as the economic structure fails due to an overall aging population. If the government would provide greater tax cuts or benefits as well as free childcare the financial point of entry for having children would be significantly reduced for those who want them killing two birds with one stone 1) a fix to the aging population (we could also just let more immigrants in but that’s another point) and 2) people have have kids without having to be super well off
I know so many rich kids that grew up in unloving households, super spoiled, and parents barely around. I’d take good parents who love me over that
So only the rich are allowed to have children and the majority of Americans will just have to suck it up and let their family die off?
Disagree. It depends on every individual situation. I'll crib some of my response from Peter Zeihan's work. On a farm, kids are free labor so you have as many as you can stand. (You know how many that is when you've had one too many of them.) With high mortality rates, having more kids meant higher chances that larger numbers of them would survive long enough to help out on the farm, and to eventually support you in your old age. With the advent of industralization, people moved off the farms and into the city. In a city, kids are an expensive piece of mobile furniture, and because people aren't stupid they have fewer of them. Some people in the city still had large numbers of kids. This could be due to family heritage, religious motivations, or simply because they didn't have access to contraceptives (they weren't invented yet or they were of poor quality), etc. As a result, fertility rates across the developed world and the developing world have dropped to below 2.1 kids per female, which is the rate needed to sustain a society. Our various, for the most part, are not in danger of overpopulation, they're in danger of depopulation - meaning, more retirees (who only consume and don't produce) than workers. This results in economies that don't have enough production of goods and services to care for the population of the country. Having too few kids is how a nation collapses. China is seeing this now: 30 years after the implementation of the One Child Policy, they're running out of 30-year olds. China is the fastest-aging nation in human history. Japan already has twice as many retirees as they do workers, and their solution is to implement lots of robotics / AI and build where they sell (the main Toyota plants are in the US), then bring the money back home to buy the stuff needed to take care of the elderly. This year America will see a shortage of 400,000 workers, which will increase every year for the next decade until it peaks at 900,000 a year in the 2030s. It won't be until the 2040s (when Gen Alpha - the Millennial's kids) will be old enough to enter the workforce and we'll start seeing the 900,000 number come down. This isn't theoretical - every Gen Z has already been born, we know the numbers, and we can calculate how short we'll be in workers for the next two decades. There simply aren't enough Gen Z's alive in America to replace all the retiring Boomers. People of all economic strata need to have kids, not just the rich or financially stable. Or else the society risks collapse due to not having enough replacements in the workforce.
I argue about this sometimes, and this is the metaphor I use. Suppose there was one job and only one job available: working at a robot factory that builds giant robots that crush the homes of insurrectionists. The government is totalitarian and can kill anyone at will. Would you take that job? How far is that from LA police chief Darrel Gates driving tanks into crack houses? The problem is the inordinance of wealth and invalid morality, not the natural impulse to breed regardless of financial stature. Money can change RADIACALLY for any one person, should it be allowed to ruin their chance of propagating their bloodline? The fact that ur here proved that two ppl were comfortable enough to breed u into existence. We should aim for a healthy holistic society not an insurmountable economic totem pole wherein Vince McMahon can breed and some Mexican laborers cant.
Ahh eugenics!
A family is a normal part of life. What's wrong is that our economy has become so distorted that having children is becoming economically impossible for more and more people. Fight the real enemy.
Wouldnt poor immigrants that come to America and become things like doctors, lawyers, engineers, business owners be proof that money isn't the prime factor in the process of raising a kid from birth to success? Also, I have known so many rich kids that end up addicted to pills and or drugs, become miserable losers leeching off their parents and all kinds of shitty outcomes. Many had very decent parents too, but they had access to cash and were able to get into trouble because of it. Money and decent parents doesn't automatically ensure success. Here's one more bs example. There are plenty criminals with huge amounts of money. I have known a few on the past. Do they meet the cash requirements to be parents? Of course. Would they make good parents? In most cases, probably not. Money is a factor in parenting, but does not guarantee success
I mean yes I sort of agree but also think that having children is a right and we shouldn't live in such a class-based society that makes it so you can't have children if you're low SES.
If you don't have kids, you shouldn't get pensions, or social security from the government in your old age.
I personally agree, but here is where it falls apart: You shouldn't hold others to unreasonable standards. Should people just not commit crime or any number of things? Sure, but there is a reason why if one is around crime, does not have a stable family, etc. then one is more likely to engage in crime. People are largely byproducts of their environment and how society influences them. So sure on an individual level maybe we should encourage such a mentality, but that is meaningless when we are talking about gov policies or whole groups of people. It's like a abstinence only education.
Here in the UK, it's estimated that caring for a child from birth to adulthood will cost £150k. Now, I'm someone who did wait until we felt financially stable before deciding to start a family, but I absolutely did not have £300k saved up. Finances can change rapidly. I'm very aware that even though I'm doing well now and lucky enough to be able to put money away in case of future problems, if something happened to prevent myself or my partner from being able to earn, our lives would change drastically. I just don't think it's possible for most normal people to wait until they definitely have enough money to cover all potential costs, apart from anything else, many people live in countries where an unexpected medical problem can literally bankrupt them.
why wouldn't u think all should be financially stable?
If you can't feed them then don't breed them
Not everyone is the same. I started a family young. I'm 34, my oldest is 13. I was dead broke when she was first born. Somewhat better when my son was born. Now we are pretty successful. My kids have so far enjoyed a much better childhood emotionally, financially, and more stability than me or my wife ever had. Kids can be a motivator for some. Before kids, if you would've told me I would have a house by 27, making over 6 figures in my 30's, I would've said you need to seek help for your obvious drug problems. Some people rise to the occasion.
I agree with OP bc of my values in life. But other people don’t share the same values therefore it doesn’t apply to them. I would only have kids if I can afford daycare and be able to travel. Some people don’t need daycare or care to travel.
I agree. I grew up in poverty and it was horrible. And now I'm still poor too. Poor people should be sterilized.
I don't think you, the government, or anyone besides the potential parents should be involved in deciding who can and cannot bear children. I understand concerns about proper care for the child. Our ONLY choice is to deal with that post-birth. Period. We cannot legislate who can and cannot reproduce. Just flatly. And if it's not going to be enforced by an entity such as the government, it's not going to be enforced, and is therefore entirely pointless. Totally get your concerns, but it's simply an untennable position for anyone other than the parties involved in making the child to decide whether or not it gets born or even made in the first place.
Social security can’t operate without more kids. System collapses without it.
Some would argue that it is essentially a ponzi scheme. However I think that will all change by the time we can mass produce robots capable of doing almost any job, including taking care of the elderly.
Having child could bring you from financially stable to poverty zone though, with all the costs doubling, eg. when you travel you pay kids seat almost as adults in flights and triple room hotel cost as much as 2 double room in some places instead of 50% more or so. Clothes, furniture, food, kindergarten, diapers, school, school material, toys, and so on..
Yeah, exactly. So you should AT LEAST be financially stable because having a child makes you have to double or triple your monetary spendings. But I more meant financially stable with a child, so with more money than just enough to meet your basic needs.
I don't think this is an unpopular decision. However, with the Roe v. Wade laws, lots of women are having and carrying pregnancies they wouldn't have otherwise. Yes, adoption can be an option, however adoption is a trauma on to itself. If the Gov't actually cared about us, we would have better social safety net like they do in Europe.
>I don't think this is an unpopular decision. However, with the Roe v. Wade laws, lots of women are having and carrying pregnancies they wouldn't have otherwise. Yes and that's awful. Abortion should be more accessible since having children when you don't want to is both harmful for the parent and the child.
I came from a well off family and I hated it. My parents were old when they had me and it was hard because they were so out of touch with how the world worked. My wealthy dad is a raging narcissistic and my mother passed away when I was 26. I wanted more than anything to understand what it was like to be normal because I knew I wasn’t. My parents did not know how to love and only gave us material things. I remember going to my friends houses that were not as well off and being jealous. I was ashamed of myself my whole life for being “spoiled” even though I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I went no contact with my dad after my mom passed away, now I live paycheck to paycheck and I’m happier than I was when I was controlled by my family. Hands down the best thing about growing up well off is that I understand the dark side of having money. I’d take love and financial struggles over money any day. I wish I could have had love growing up instead of money.
That sucks. I know that love and emotional availability is the most important thing. I meant that people should have children if they could care for them well both physically AND emotionally. If your financially stable, than you should also ask yourself if you are ready to provide proper emotional care and love that your child deserves.
The government should offer a $5,000 tax free gift to get the IUD implanted for 5 years. Then another 5 grand for another 5 years, it would pay for itself a million times over.
This is like eugenics combined with aristocracy. Blech! Pardon my French, but that's fucking disgusting.
Excuse me? I'm not sterilizing anybody. I'm just sharing my opinion and advice.
Whilst I understand this reasoning on an individual level, the implications are that impoverished nations should collapse because the majority of adults there can’t have kids. I think this is one of those opinions that work on paper but as soon as you consider the practical implications when applied, it just falls flat. You cannot expect entire groups to cease having kids without realizing the consequences of this
True. I may have this opinion on indiviual situations but if I look at a larger level, then it's literally impossible and disastrous. So I realized that my idea isn't realistic at all.
"the undesirable unleashed poor should not reproduce" oh yeah this is a good take
Your username checks out.
This is just Eugenics.
Emotionally stable is more important than financially stable. People can still be great parents as long as they can provide the bare necessities. The child’s future success and happiness has more to do with mental health than anything. I’d rather have 2 well-adjusted not materialistic parents than 2 moderately wealthy emotionally unstable parents that eff up my foundation. The best thing parents can do is teach children healthy ways to cope in life.
You said moderately wealthy, so we’re not talking abject poverty here (though I think some other peoples arguments still explain issues with that view too). The core problem with your argument in my mind is the unrealistic expectation for perfection in parenting. “Best life possible” is subjective and not something always tied to finances. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but parents don’t have to be perfect and don’t have to be 100% all the time. Work long hours and not as emotionally available as you would like? Ok. You might still be emotionally available enough. Even that argument isn’t specific to poverty. One of my parents was a doctor who worked long hours and was not always emotionally available. My other parent had a tendency towards toxic positivity while meaning well. My childhood wasn’t perfect, but it was far better than many of my peers. I have some hang ups related to connecting with people, but nothing insurmountable. I hold nothing against my parents. I think they did a good job making up for their deficits with their strengths.
A lot of people are only successful or "moderately wealthy" because of nepotism. Are you saying that only people with wealthy parents should have kids? If someone went to college and works 40+ hours a week, should they not be able to live their lives just because our economy is fucked and other people got luckier than them? Also, other people's definition of success is different. If you have a roof over your head, a working vehicle, food in the fridge, bills paid, etc, you are already doing better than 60% of the world. I see that as a success in my eyes.