I have been lucky enough to be able to work and live in several countries around the world. One thing in common I noticed in all these places is that guys and girls don't have time and don't want to commit to a stable long relation. They invest pretty much themselves and their time in their career, traveling , parties, dogs, cats and bitcoins :) !
The mantra is to get rich and retire at 40 years old! Travel the world and have fun.
By the time they are somewhat satisfied with theirs status they have reached ~35 years old. At that point is more difficult to find a person and accept to share your life and habits with them.
They are so used to live their own lives that they have extremely hard time compromising any part of it.
I think the society has (wrongly) evolved towards an individualist model at the expenses of families.
I have noticed that people have been more and more intolerant to family flying with kids. It is hard to find kids friendly restaurants, hotels and resorts.
People invite you to parties and kids are always not welcome. Not to mention also the additional cost associated with having a family.
But you know what ? I am so happy every day when I come home and my kids run towards me and we play and have fun. I and my wife coudln't be happier!
A piece of advice, stop running, take time off and think about your life beyond work and money. Traveling is fun but is way more fun and interesting when you can share it with some one you care about, like your family!
> They are so used to live their own lives that they have extremely hard time compromising any part of it.
Reminds me of this passage from The Brothers Karamazov:
> “I heard exactly the same thing, a long time ago to be sure, from a doctor,” the elder remarked. “He was then an old man, and unquestionably intelligent. He spoke just as frankly as you, humorously, but with a sorrowful humor. ‘I love mankind,’ he said, ‘but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons. In my dreams,‘ he said, ‘I often went so far as to think passionately of serving mankind, and, it may be, would really have gone to the cross for people if it were somehow suddenly necessary, and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone even for two days, this I know from experience. As soon as someone is there, close to me, his personality oppresses my self-esteem and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I can begin to hate even the best of men: one because he takes too long eating his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps blowing his nose. I become the enemy of people the moment they touch me,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, it has always happened that the more I hate people individually, the more ardent becomes my love for humanity as a whole.’”
The speaker goes on to say:
> Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving even of one’s life, provided it does not take long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science.
Nice quote. Does the author tell why he ends up hating a human when he loves humanity. I think I too have that problem. I look at all the TED talks and think I should love humanity but I have a bad husband to my wife and a bad father to my kids. tia.
I think it's not anything wrong with you per se, nor have I read the book, but I think it's because like the author says, dealing with people on an individual basis requires personal sacrifice. Particularly, emotional sacrifice. Allowing people to get a cold without letting it bother you. Making compromises and being forced to do things you don't want, while not being able to do what you want, on a daily micro level.
Whereas tasks that show your love for humanity are more detached from actual individuals. Curing cancer requires you to interact with lab equipment and microorganisms more than humans. Sure your opportunity costs here may be playing video games or traveling, but they are less emotional costs and more material costs.
Paying emotional tolls is difficult, and from my experience, many people are simply incapable of paying them. I mean, they are or may be capable, but they would have to change the way they act or behave, and they are not willing to do so. I think there's a genetic component to it.
It is nice to know you are fan of David Foster Wallace. I first came across This is Water about 10 years back, shortly after he passed away. It was an article that appeared on New York Times. The article described what an extraordinary writer he was. The I read This is Water. It was jaw dropping. I have read that essay several times after that. I have remembered the contents of that article several times when struck by melancholy. I was deeply moved by that essay. He has written This is water with such deep understanding of the human condition and with such empathy. I have wept for his untimely death. I always wonder, how does he was able everything about the humans in slow motion and with such high resolution. Amazing. No words. We are worse off without him.
I heard someone describe this as the "capstone" vs "conerstone" model. Previous generations got married and had kids much earlier, and built their lives off of that cornerstone. When it comes to me personally and my peers, we see marriage and children more as a capstone -- something to be done once our student loan is paid, or when we're ready to put a down payment on a house, when we get that promotion, etc.
I'm still in awe that starting off your life with massive student loans is a thing. This is almost always a very poor decision as there are tons of cheap regional schools where a part time job can mostly get you through school with very little debt. And yet we've got a generation of new adults starting life under crushing debt that purchased them something of dubious value (an expensive degree versus a cheap one). My regional university had a decent CS program and tuition was $3k/year.
I teach at the University of South Carolina, where tuition and fees are over $10K a year. To my knowledge, the same is true of all the other four-year colleges in the state (Clemson, College of Charleston, Lander, USC Upstate, The Citadel etc.)
Not as outrageous as private school tuition, but it's still a very substantial burden, especially when you factor in food and housing as well.
My impression is that this is quite typical for the US. I would be delighted to learn that I am mistaken.
The "one weird trick to graduate on the cheap! colleges hate him!" of choice these days is community college.
Have fun trying to get your credits to transfer. I had trouble getting credits to transfer from the Air Force Academy to a state college. They want you to do them there. They would take them as generic credit hours but it was an uphill battle to get them to actually satisfy graduation requirements (which are the real thing that keeps you from graduating, you will already have enough credit hours).
I've always heard that you should complete your AA at community college before transfering for your bachelors as it's a lot easier to transfer with the entire degree than trying to translate individual credit hours between schools.
So first two years cheap at community college for an AA/AS then you only have two years for your bachelors at a more expensive school.
I was charged more than that for a public university in the 1990s. In a few years I paid for that, my wife's similar loans, and a new car. I also got married and had my first two kids.
So it looks cheap to me, assuming the housing isn't insane. I think there is a reasonable assumption that a person gets loans, chooses a sensible major, and actually graduates.
As it turns out, if you ask children with little to no experience living independently and managing money to do something predicated on living independently and managing money, they make poor decisions.
>I'm still in awe that starting off your life with massive student loans is a thing.
I'm of the opinion that, at least in the US, we romanticized the idea of "going off to college" to "find yourself". It is assumed to be this huge drug-fueled, party sex orgy that is funded on essentially credit.
That is how it was when I first went away to college in 1994; I think I paid around $3k a year tuition at University of Missouri. I started planning a 529 for my kids this week and was shocked to find that in state tuition here (South Carolina) is $15K a year for just tuition and fees. I'm scared to imagine what it will be in ten years.
You can still find small regional schools around the country which are cheaper, although not if you have to pay out of state tuition. But between rising healthcare costs and rising administrative costs, each of which represent roughly 50% of the increase in college tuition, with the small remainder being states kicking in less per student.
Without a doubt college is a lot more expensive, and it is much harder to find a school doing things cheaper. Which is why my kids will likely just live at home and get their degrees online. They'll miss out on some college experiences which they can then make up for by not being $80k in the hole when they graduate. I mean most kids are on a 25 year payment plan, which is basically their entire working life.
Got married at 38, first kid coming at 40. Had nothing to do with debts and all that other stuff; I chose to live out my wild years to full satisfaction and natural completion.
The older one practiced worldly prudence, courted during high school, got engaged at beginning of college, and waited almost a decade until after her fiancé graduated before they got married and started to have children. But now he can't get a job with his degree (pharmacist), she works at some retail job as a manager, and the whole family lives with her parents. He's in >$100,000 debt and briefly went to a medical facility during a nervous breakdown after realizing he realistically can't pay it back.
The younger sister had no such ambitions. Courted in high school, got engaged, married right out of high school, immediately started a family, he works at Walmart making higher than average money, and she stays at home raising the kids. They also live with her parents in the same house.
True stories. This all happened over the past 7 years.
I would say the prudence of the second couple vastly outshines the "prudence" of the first couple.
By the way you phrase it, the outcome of the older sister hinged upon the husband failing to get a job as a pharmacist. If he had successfully landed a job, the outcome of your story would be very different.
The same argument could be made for the younger sister. What happens when Walmart downsizes, and the husband is out of job with a background only in retail?
I'm not sure it is worth citing or criticizing the 'prudence' of either couple.
The first couple waited almost a decade to start having a family, and accrued $100k in debt.
The second couple had a family immediately, have no debt, and are otherwise in the exact same situation as the first couple.
And the couple that had children sooner, are younger and more energetic, and also have less stressful jobs that allow them to spend more time and better quality time with them.
Also there is a real value in having the mom stay at home full time where she can teach their children their own values and guard them from bad practices or influences at such an impressionable age.
Where is this? There's no where in the US where you can't get a job as a pharmacist. No where. Retails are needed very much so, you have to stand and it pays really freaking well, except it's hard to cross over into other types. Again, in the USA, in any state in this country, working full time, at the very worse, you will make $90k/yr as a pharmacist.
Getting a PharmD used to be a golden ticket. Then a ton of schools opened up and flooded the market. Wages are actually on the way down and from what I've heard, the retail jobs really suck.
There's either something you don't know or aren't telling us. There has to be a specific reason why someone who holds a Doctor of Pharmacy would be unable to get a job.
I am not sure how you come to that conclusion without knowing more details. What if the couples truly love each other and enjoy each other's company. What if they share looking after children thus having time for themselves and each other. There might be people who have good jobs are able to travel but hate their jobs, are lonely and don't like their spouse.
I have noticed that people have been more and more intolerant to family flying with kids.
I think we hear about the bad stuff, some flight attendant or passenger complains, and the logical conclusion of a family with a crying baby is booted is the end result. My counter-anecdote is the exact opposite, my fourteen month old daughter cried the majority of our 3.5 hour return flight and she was quietest (not quiet but quietest) was when I was standing and holding her in the middle of the aisle. Any dirty looks, and I scanned for them occasionally, were non-existent (or I missed them and they never vocalized) and most people either had noise-cancelling headphones or just rolled with it. When we apologized for the noise there was a lot of "Oh ours our teenagers now, we've been there, you're ok!"
Some of it maybe the bigger stink they make the longer it all takes, but a lot of it is probably shared communal experiences. If some baby was wailing their lungs off next to me on a plane, I'd roll with it, the parent(s) is having a far tougher time of it then I am.
Same observation here. I've never seen anyone give dirty looks to any crying kids / babies on a plane. Most people are closing their eyes / sleeping or have their headphones on doing whatever. I mean, there are so many solutions to a crying kid (for the observer) that there's no reason to get upset about it (and I haven't seen this being the case at all).
>I think the society has (wrongly) evolved towards an individualist model at the expenses of families.
that's a wrong dichotomy. There's no fundamental reason why 35 year olds don't socialize, or why our education system stops at 25, why we have no communal institutions, and so on.
The alternative isn't just between individualism and the family, what is needed is building out communities in ways that gives people the ability to connect in new ways that reflect our changes in work and living arrangements.
As the article mentions the UK has introduced a minister for the problem of loneliness. What we need is to put policies into place that develop new modes of social life and to expand the public sphere.
The nuclear family isn't really that attractive any more for a reason, so just asking to go back isn't really a great idea. People like the freedom that comes with having no or fewer children, being able to move, and being financially independent.
Can you expound on what you would propose. My experience is that clubs or meetups often don't forge all that close relationships. Another example I could think of which is more positive is co-ops where people lived in a door room type experience with community rules and chore responsibilities (cooking, cleaning, maintenance). But I think many adult American's would think of a co-op as to close to a commune.
Coop living for the elderly I think would be a fairly good start, I'm German and we have some of those communities in the south, it's usually like a small village where older residents take care of each other with the assistance of some company who provides caregivers, but people enjoy much greater autonomy than they do in their homes. It's not only cheaper, but also more dignified and people seem to be happier.
For younger people I think coops are a great thing too. In the US implementing policies that discourages single family housing and promotes closer connection between workspace and living space I think would help. If you live and work in walking distance of your chess club going there is more likely compared to someone living in the suburbs.
For communities there's also time banking which has gotten a little attention in recent years. Essentially paying people in a special currency for reciprocal help in their local communities that can only be exchanged locally, and everyone earns the same based on how long they work. Basically an egalitarian approach to fill in the gap where markets are too anonymous to provide meaning or where they don't exist at all.
And then I think government and companies should do much more to promote education for middle aged and older people. And not just online learning, but physical interaction. In my experience educational institutions are some of the best places to make new social connections.
i'm 26 and have traveled a fair bit and lived/worked in the US and UK
young people go to the cities for high status, high paying jobs to pay off student loans and/or save up for the future in an increasingly uncertain world
competition is extremely high for these jobs, compounded 1000x due to the rise and use of social media among my generation, which always suggests that next thing to buy or that next vacation to go on, either from corporations or your "friends" (it's hard to tell which is which after a while) - get that raise so you can unlock the next tier of stuff you see wealthy people doing
gone are the days of getting an intellectually stimulating and well paying job with IBM/Ford/GE and building your career off it while having a family young, people my age usually stay in a job for 2/3 years then on to the next startup/job/"adventure" (if they have the right degree to get a job in the first place)
then there's a completely separate cohort of people my age who have settled outside the city, gotten married, looking to have kids in low cost of living areas and figure out job stuff as they go (very risky unless you own your own biz or work for a family biz)
dating is a similarly competitive game in the big cities, one that warrants its own 10 page essay per city based on the conversations i've had with single friends in LA/NY/London/SF
the gap between generations is growing more and more pronounced/quicker due to technology grouping similar people together and amplifying their cultures...it takes effort but you need to continuously bridge this gap with those younger than you, otherwise their needs, desires, motivations will be completely alien to you - i almost don't understand the fortnite meme generation, but i make efforts to
most young people are acutely aware of life outside work and money (especially asians/immigrants due to pressure from conservative parents), but it's getting harder and harder to find the middle class/balance between earning enough to have a family comfortably and affording a place to live while keeping your job options healthy/open for whatever BS is coming next down the economic chain
28 here, and I agree completely. Nice point about the people who try to figure the job thing out while taking the more “traditional” path — I feel like that’s a sizable part of our generation that’s usually ignored.
Also, yeah, I don’t get the memes that my high school niece sends me at all. Their sense of humor is completely foreign to me.
>gone are the days of getting an intellectually stimulating and well paying job with IBM/Ford/GE and building your career off it while having a family young,
well for me personally at least that's a great thing. Working for giant company X while living in company town coming home to your labradoodle and your wife with a cooking pot to in hand to watch TV to me is the horror very well portrayed in American Beauty.
Coming out of university I could pick between going abroad, working for a startup, working for a normal business, working from home even, not being looked down for not wanting a family and so on. The liberty I have today is something my parents never had. And sure, with freedom comes disorientation and competition, but to me that's exciting rather than distressing.
Yep, definitely we have much more freedom of travel and work. which is great if you embrace and are prepared and ready for that lifestyle. keep doing your thing! another book/movie that addresses the american dream trap is revolutionary road by yates, i'd recommend the book if you like american beauty. but these are both cultural artifacts of a different era IMO
> young people go to the cities for high status, high paying jobs to pay off student loans and/or save up for the future in an increasingly uncertain world
The current world is very capitalistic - high risk and high reward. Smart people are aware that there are paths that will allow them to retire at 40 or earlier, and are trying to pursue them. Unfortunately, these paths often require lots of dedication, so people neglect other areas of life. Whereas in earlier days, there were perhaps fewer good paths to financial independence, and people just accepted being in their jobs until old age, and tried to find comfort in family, friends etc.
Along a similar note... kids are for the young. When you're in your 20's it's MUCH easier to play with young kids and at least try to keep up as it is when you're in your 40's.
There's also something to be said for averting hookup culture and actually trying to build a relationship as opposed to ejecting at the first sign of inconvenience.
I say both of these things as a twice divorced 40-something that hasn't had kids of his own and deeply regrets it.
my dad was 45 when I was born and 47 when my brother was born.
maybe he didn't have as much energy as some of the younger dads when I was a kid. but on the other hand he was able to retire while I was in high school, so he was able to spend a lot more time with my brother and I before we moved out.
It's easier to meet your basic survival needs as an individual, and thus you have more disposable income for nonsense commodities. Everybody I know who is single and has a good job buys tons of junk they don't need (or often even want). It's the norm.
It's a variant of norm. Another variant is to throw away anything one doesn't use for more than a year, rent-not-buy most of entertaining stuff, including musical instruments, game consoles, fancy cars and dresses, holiday villas and yachts. Actually, hoarding and junk collecting is a prerogative of the poor.
Even renting "fancy cars and dresses, holiday villas and yachts" sounds like an opulent lifestyle, where someone has a lot of disposable income and is finding was to entertain himself with the extra cash.
It may sound like that, but it may be the other way around. Here in Moscow I can rent SmartForFour Cabrio for 720 RUB (10.80 USD) per hour via carshering app, insurance and city parking included. 45 feet sailing yacht on Mediterranean costs 2500 EUR per week and is suitable for up to 6 people, berthing and fuel will add 500 EUR, cheaper than most of hotels. Check out AirBnB for holiday villas)
Bringing a child into the world to increase my own personal happiness, when nothing else I could do has such a direct and massive climate impact, is not something I can justify personally. Not to mention, my child would have to live to see the impacts of climate change.
There is coming a point (it has already passed, in my opinion), where we can no longer justify our purpose for existence as "creating more humans."
That's an extremely negative-sum way of viewing the world. Some individual humans (and even communities) can and have had a net-positive impact on the environment. For instance, did the parents of Greta Thunberg have a net-negative impact on the world by choosing to bring her into it?
When people implicitly say that bringing children in the world is necessarily a net-negative on climate, they're implying that their lifestyle is necessarily net-carbon-positive and that they just refuse to do enough to make their own lifestyle net-carbon-negative. Yet it IS possible to do so. I'm reminded of this Indian fellow who planted an entire forest pretty much by himself (although surely his wife/family also helped enable him to accomplish that goal): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7i3QlMvsZs
...there are so many decisions one can make to cut one's carbon emissions to near zero. And some decisions can even make one's carbon emissions negative (some startups at Y Combinator, even... although there are more proven methods as well).
The most powerful thing as a parent is that you can help pass on your values to your children. Teach them (through example) how to live a low or negative carbon lifestyle and teach them the value of the environment and why the Earth must be protected. Plant trees. Make intentional decisions with lifestyle (mode of travel, living arrangements, diet) that lower carbon emissions, and explain these things to your children starting at a young age.
Because the world will NEED people with those values in the future if climate change will ever be addressed and eventually reversed without a collapse of human civilization. Because if everyone with a positive view of the environment and the need to fight climate change does not pass on that worldview to their children, BUT those who deny climate change and do not value the environment pass on their worldview to their children, then that is clearly not going to work out for those who value the environment.
Just to follow up, there are things one can do immediately to drive their carbon emissions negative.
For instance, pay people to plant (native) trees and restore ecosystems (or do it yourself). About $15/month could offset your entire carbon footprint and bring it negative: https://mossy.earth/
If you don't buy that argument for forest restoration counting ($15/ton of CO2), then you could also try some of the more expensive methods like sustainable biochar sequestration ($300/ton CO2). Even the super expensive options for offsetting CO2 are no more than a car lease payment at the individual level (and cheaper, of course, if you reduce your direct emissions as well).
It is not realistic to expect that children will live without carbon emissions when it is clear that billions and billions of people don´t do that.
We have too many people on the planet. Carbon emissions is only one of the many huge environmental problems we have. Creating new consumers to the planet is clearly the most devastating act for the environment what individual people can do.
You can't just dismiss out of hand the power of individual choices (living carbon negative) while simultaneously advocating for a certain type of individual choice (not having children).
The number of people that can inhabit the planet without destroying the environment is highly dependent on individual choices and (maybe even more) government policy. Government policy is determined by voting power, which is in turn determined by the values of people weighted by population. So absolutely it matters if the pro-environment folk advocate removing (to some degree) their own voice from future populations of voters while anti-environment folk do not.
The most devastating act that individual people can do is to not pass on positive, lasting values to the next generation. Because you're not going to stop anti-environment people from passing down negative values by doing so; you'll in fact be amplifying their stance. We must heal the Earth.
I'm pretty sure that by "the world" the GP meant human civilization.
And I feel like that's obvious enough that this objection that you and others raise has to be willful, disingenuous misinterpretation, just to be disagreeable or something.
The way I see it is that you don't bring child into the world to "increase" your own personal happiness. They are (at least in my personal case) the result of my own happiness. And yes they require a lot of work, but all the hard work is totally worth it every time your children look at smile at you.
My point is not that they require a lot of work. My point is that they have a massive impact on climate change. You could spend your entire life flying to conferences, living on a cruise ship, dumping trash in the ocean, and none of it would even hold a candle to the environmental impact of having a child.
This type of attitude is pretty common these days. It's this postmodern view of the world where humanity is somehow separate from nature and must be controlled to protect nature. This is such an arrogant attitude. Sure, you may be right, that having a child has a high carbon footprint, but your decision to not have children doesn't improve anything. Not being actively bad isn't the same as being good.
What's your point? That we should collectively bury our heads in the sand and keep living the two-kids-and-a-minivan suburb life right up until the end?
That's quite the extrapolation from what I actually said. My point is that the choice to not have children is not the same as actively helping. Not making things worse is not "good". And demonizing all of humanity as though we are somehow a virus to be eliminated is arrogant. We can be mindful of our impact on the environment without assuming that we're a problem.
If you have Choice A which actively makes things worse and Choice B which doesn't make things worse then Choice A is the "good" choice as it is the one that causes the least harm. Driving a 50cc scooter instead of a car doesn't actively help carbon emissions, in fact it still puts out carbon, but it any reasonable person would say that switching from a car to a scooter helps the environment. Splitting hairs over whether doing less harm counts as "helping" isn't very productive.
> That we should collectively bury our heads in the sand and keep living the two-kids-and-a-minivan suburb life right up until the end?
Have kids and don't do that. If the "good guys" aren't having kids then we'll be fucked. I assure you the "bad guys" are having loads of kids and they don't care one iota about climate change....
There's a 3rd option not being given attention here: adoption. Why play into the idea that the fate of the future depends on some contest to reproduce more "good guys" than "bad guys"? There's plenty of kids that need families who, otherwise, may become the very "bad guys" you speak of. At the same time, you're not further burdening the world's ecosystem with another human simply because of a selfish desire to have another "you" out there. Sounds like a win-win to me.
The view isn't that humanity is separate from nature. It's being cognizant of humanity's impact on nature. The decision not to have children absolutely does improve the situation. In fact, as far as environmental impact the decision to have children is one of the highest-impact choices a person can make. I suppose if you want to be pedantic it doesn't improve anything but it does drastically reduce the continued harm to the environment.
> It's this postmodern view of the world where humanity is somehow separate from nature and must be controlled to protect nature.
The viewpoint that really puts humanity as separate from nature is the one that assumes that the planet can support an unlimited quantity of humans without obliterating nature in the process. How many people do you think the earth can support? 10 billion? 15 billion? At some point we're going to hit a wall. But, thanks to technology, long before we hit that wall most of the plants and animals we take for granted today will be gone.
If we want to preserve a fraction of the biodiversity we have today, at some point soon the human population of the planet will have to stop growing. People who don't have kids are making the rational, forward-looking choice as far as I'm concerned.
> The viewpoint that really puts humanity as separate from nature is the one that assumes that the planet can support an unlimited quantity of humans without obliterating nature in the process...
The true but unpleasant situation is that, on average, people on HN should be having more kids while those in developing countries should have fewer.
You not having a kid is very unlikely to be a net positive for humanity if you live in a developed country with a large, stable income.
> The true but unpleasant situation is that, on average, people on HN should be having more kids while those in developing countries should have fewer.
Exactly backwards if you look at the resource consumption and carbon footprint per capita in SF vs. that in developing countries[1]. iPhones and Ubers and Bird scooters are expensive. Not just in monetary terms but in terms of generating tons of carbon emissions during production, operation, and disposal/recycling.
> People who don't have kids are making the rational, forward-looking choice as far as I'm concerned.
People who don't have kids because they are worried about climate change are doing a big disservice because they are ensuring that all the folks who don't give a rusty rats ass about climate change eventually outnumber them.
Ideology and science are not like the ability to run fast. They don't require biological heritage to propagate. If I spent the money I would spend educating my kids on funding education in the developing world it would probably result in far more net increase in awareness of climate change.
And we can work towards that kind of preservation without demonizing humanity as a whole and not view ourselves as some kind of virus that must be eliminated. That's really my point. And it's a very arrogant view that ironically stems from religion, though no liberal westerner will ever admit to it. The concept of humans being separate from nature goes back to the story of Adam and Eve and is embedded in western thought. It's a good thing to be mindful of the environment, but it's not a good thing to think that all of humanity is evil and needs to be eliminated in order to save the earth.
I don't understand why you're being downvoted. Carrying capacity is a thing, and it applies both at the petri dish level and at the biome/global level.
“Nature” as it existed 500M years ago has been obliterated and does not exist today. Same for nature as it existed 100M and 10M years ago. Who’s to say which era’s version of nature is correct and deserves special preservation?
> Being not-bad is not the same as being good. Inaction is not the same as positive action. That's literally all I'm saying.
Well of course, I don't think anyone was suggesting that not having kids was all you had to do to become a good person and save the planet.
The person who avoids having kids is still probably doing more to reduce CO2 than the average superficially "eco-conscious" family. Positive action that actually makes a difference is really hard work; avoiding plastic bags, recycling, and driving a Tesla isn't going to do much.
Someone who has kids, and raises them to respect the environment, while also planting trees and actively working to improve the planet is far more "good" than someone who just sits around being lonely doing nothing.
Yes, if they do enough, they could have more of an impact on CO2 reduction than the average layabout with no kids. It's not impossible. It just takes a lot of work.
> My point is not that they require a lot of work. My point is that they have a massive impact on climate change. You could spend your entire life flying to conferences, living on a cruise ship, dumping trash in the ocean, and none of it would even hold a candle to the environmental impact of having a child.
Your argument applies equally to "having a child" and "letting some person live."
That's a pretty big jump. In one case, I create a human where one does not currently exist. In the other case, I choose to impose my will on a human that currently exists and has a will of their own.
It's not as big of a jump as you think. If climate change is such an urgent issue that anti-natalism should be on the agenda, perhaps it's a big enough crisis to motivate a re-evaluation of some old ideas about the sanctity of individual human lives.
This is like the bartender telling you that "maybe you've had enough" and, instead of just not drinking anymore, you immediately calling an ambulance to take you to the hospital and get your stomach pumped.
> perhaps it's a big enough crisis to motivate a re-evaluation of some old ideas about the sanctity of individual human lives
You say this flippantly, but if we don't eventually reverse the trends, this will happen. It will be camouflaged in the garb of warfare against the "enemy", as it always is.
You're delusional if you think climate change isn't going to play out without human deaths on a massive scale, regardless of whether that's wars for habitable land and water or explicit murders of "surplus" populations.
We're on a path that is going to significantly lessen the carrying capacity of the planet (on the human timescales we care about). It's implicit and unavoidable barring a wholescale change in power structures and probably human attitudes in general.
It's not a good thing but it is inevitable at this point.
It really, really sounds like you haven’t done the math. The average per-capita CO2 emissions in the USA is about 15 tons (among the highest in the world) and a round-trip flight between SF and NY is about 1.5 tons, 10% of that. So if you flew to conferences 10 times per year, you would be using the entire carbon footprint of an average US citizen, which is among the highest in the world.
Your original statement - that a carbon-hedonistic lifestyle of frequent flying and cruise ships would still be lower CO2 output than having children - is flatly wrong, and your source does not bolster your argument.
Sure, but who's to say whether or not those children will fly on planes or go on cruises? Or their grandchildren? Or their great-grandchildren? This strikes me as a fallacious argument that simply not going on cruises or plane rides can offset the environmental footprint of having children. At least not unless there's some mechanism to forbid those children from every flying on a plane or taking a cruise - and not aware of any such mechanism.
What have you personally done to change that? To reduce your ecological impact? To improve the world.
There's an old saying that if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. You don't think raising a child under the auspices of being environmentally aware, and that their influence would extend beyond yours is a good thing? That if you and your partner only have one child, you are generationally reducing the population while allowing your views to seed and grow.
There is so much negativity in the world... kind of lines up with the article title itself, and is more of the same problem than the solution. Even then, you aren't helping the world by actively not having children.
So you are saying that children "have a massive impact on climate change" ?
I don't have any statistics that can either confirm or dispute that assertion. But I will gladly ban SUV and Cruise s in favor of whatever climate impact children can have.
Are you crazy? Increasing the number of humans on the planet is the number one thing you can do to worsen climate change. You forget that we are nothing but an organism, we all produce waste and contribute hardly nothing beneficial to the environment.
If that is true of organisms, then life of all types is a net negative.
What a sad perspective. I know many people who contribute massively to the environment. Maybe you need to choose a different, pro-environment lifestyle? Plant some trees. It's possible to live carbon negative and pass on those values to your children.
Why not just raise your kids with a low eco footprint? The whole argument is silly to me. If you want to find the best action you and your children can do about climate change - it’s going vegan.
There’s a ton of info out there that says it better than I can but the consensus is the vegan diet is the biggest thing you can do.
“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.
“Agriculture is a sector that spans all the multitude of environmental problems,” he said. “Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy.”
In a book i've read the hero was saying that if you believe the end of the world is imminent, and you are contemplating suicide, then most likely you are in a cult.
Unfortunately modern environmentalism is a cult with its own armageddon. And WWF actively displacing native hunter gatherer people to "save the wildlife". What is the point of preserving environment if there are no people in it?
In fact shrinking population is the worst thing for the environment that can happen now, because at this point we have already activated the natural process of arctic melting and releasing CO2, and even if half of people were magically removed there wouldn't be a huge difference.
On the other hand the new science and technology depend on large number of people ready to pay for them. Things like starlink, new CPUs, would be impossible with smaller population. But if the population was larger, we would already have floating cities increasing carbon capture in sea, desalination plants irrigating large parts of sahara, system of balloons, solar updraft towers and satellites controlling the local climate.
If you are from a rich country, not having children is doubly bad, because you have all the resources to give these kids better education. The world would have been a much better place if people from western countries were immigrating to the rest of the world bringing their money and their knowledge of how to build a better society, but instead of that the rich countries are making easy for smart and entrepreneurial people to immigrate there leaving us perpetually underdeveloped. (When most of the people who were exposed to western values, and had good education immigrate, there is not enough power remaining to fight with those who want to build medieval dictatorship).
If pro-environment people do not have children to pass their values to but anti-environment people do, then clearly there won't be much support for climate action in the future.
Climate action is still a very long road. Yes, we probably already have nearly 1.5C baked in, but our children and grandchildren will still have a massive role in the future of the environment.
> Yes, we probably already have nearly 1.5C baked in, but our children and grandchildren will still have a massive role in the future of the environment.
Another great reason not to have kids. They are going to be left to deal with the consequences of the 1.5C. Including war, famine, and the likely re-emergence of various fascist and totalitarian ideologies due to the crisis. Why would you choose to put people you love through that?
Because they can do immense good as well. The future has not been written yet. They have agency to do well, and I think that those who are able have a responsibility to pass on their values to ensure there are people in the future who will do good.
If only the fascists and pro-totalitarians pass on their values to future generations, then you're right there is little hope. But that's what we're discussing! I believe we have a responsibility to ensure that ISN'T the future.
Forget your feelings and stick to the key question - does the world need more people, less people, or do we have exactly the right amount? I think we have too many, practically every day I see people in my own city that I will never see again in the future. It's chaotic.
Your measure of "too many people" is that you see people in your city and never see them again? That's an amazingly self-centered metric for deciding how many people there should be.
And it's very easy to fix your problem. Just move to a small town.
Maybe you’re asking the wrong question. Instead, assume that unlimited human population growth is inevitable, and ask what technology or social systems do we need to develop in order to sustain that growth.
What do we need to develop/implement in order to support a population of 10B? 100B? 1T?? At some point, routine space travel needs to come into play. 100x-to-100000x improvement in the efficiency of our energy capture/storage/distribution technology. Terraforming or other world-modification technology. At 10-100 trillion population, interstellar travel and communication. At 100+ trillion population, we need to invent stuff that isn’t even in science fiction yet.
I find all this agonizing over how to keep this tiny ball of mud habitable to be... less than ambitious.
>Forget your feelings and stick to the key question - does the world need more people, less people, or do we have exactly the right amount?
HN doesn't have an unwritten rule about expressing emotions, and the person you're responding to didn't dodge any question. Given that the submission is about happiness, it's very much on topic to discuss children and happiness.
>Bringing a child into the world to increase my own personal happiness, when nothing else I could do has such a direct and massive climate impact, is not something I can justify personally. Not to mention, my child would have to live to see the impacts of climate change.
I find your comment, and your subsequent replies, exemplifies the headline of the submission quite well:
>The decline of the family has unleashed an epidemic of loneliness
Maybe your child will be a part of a generation who can have a realm impact over the climate, in a positive way, or maybe just a path to it.
And creating more humans is not only a purpose, it is also the means of existence.
> There is coming a point (it has already passed, in my opinion), where we can no longer justify our purpose for existence as "creating more humans."
Two comments. First, within evolution (true, a brutal and inhumane theory), the point of life is exactly to survive and reproduce. It is literally unnatural to deliberately choose to not have children (unless you don't believe in evolution).
Second, I presume that you don't mean for this to be taken to the point of nobody having children, that is, to the extinction of the human race. I get the impression that some eco-types think that would be a good thing; I deeply disagree.
>It is literally unnatural to deliberately choose to not have children
Something's being natural or unnatural has no bearing on whether it is right or wrong. I assume that when the OP says "we can no longer justify" they are making a moral claim, which means that saying it's "unnatural" to not reproduce is failing to be relevant.
First,
having a child does not require you to travel more, get a bigger house, keep it warmer or cooler, buy non-second-hand clothes or do anything else with a significant carbon footprint beyond grocery shopping (which admittedly has a nontrivial footprint). It's not until adulthood that they'll really start to have a full fledged carbon footprint of their own.
Second, social animals that we are, a person's net total impact on the carbon footprints of others can be much larger than that person's individual, "direct" footprint. Raise your kid the right way and their footprint could, in a very real sense, be negative.
Third, there are some indications that the point in the future where we either solve climate change or fail catastrophically is near enough that it may have past before your kid reaches that damaging, adult phase.
Your kid would live to see the impacts of climate change, though. If we as a society would just put a price on carbon emissions and reimburse the externalized costs through a fee & dividend system, even that would not be a problem (in theory) because your kid would be compensated financially for any climate-change-induced hardship.
Seriously. The only reason I could justify having kids would be if I looked around, thought to myself "gee, there seems to be a shortage of people", and then I would replicate. Justifying replication for the sake of one's happiness is such a logical folly that it makes me die inside.
On that note, how funny is it to hear people discuss "invasive species" and how they need to be culled while our numbers are such that we're able to significantly (negatively) impact our planet in the span of 100 years.
Having children bestows the incomparable gift of life on other people (your children). Bestowing that gift is the part of having children that makes someone happy. It's not a self centered happiness; the day-to-day of raising children is frequently miserable.
Well most of those species don’t have egos so I wouldn’t say it’s egotistical.
Society is entirely composed of people who were given birth to. I don’t see how the very foundation of humanity (and all life on earth) could be viewed as “selfish”. You’re literally sustaining the human race.
While true, that's not the reason people reproduce.
Most people are only truly concerned with their own offspring and their own bloodline.
That everybody in the world is primarily focused on their own legacy but just happens to contribute to the numbers of our species as a whole is an evolutionary mechanic, not a human one.
I don't think you can separate what's human and what's evolutionary. All human actions are a by product of evolution. We evolved to want to reproduce (for selfish reasons or not). Regardless, it seems pointless to assign negative moral worth to reproducing since it's an inevitable drive and very likely the only reason we exist at all.
We separate plenty of human concepts from evolution and nature already. Choosing not to do so here seems arbitrary.
And I wasn't so much casting a moral judgement on the selfishness of the act. I was just pointing it out as a selfish act as in, it is done primarily for you and your genes whether you realise or not. You are no different than any other mammal in this regard.
(I'm referring to the collective 'you' here, not you specifically.)
That's just life and evolution. I'm not admonishing anyone for it, but I can't accept the idea that having children is somehow an altruistic act done to spread the concept of happiness when the rest of the natural world and mounds of empirical data on the study of evolution and biology screams otherwise.
That makes no sense whatsoever.
You are a mammal. You will mate and reproduce to ensure the survival of your own genes. Those are your instinctual drives. This also strokes the ego if you're successful. You get to see little versions of the your own genetics populating the world.
Some of us choose not to participate in this willingly, others will delude themselves into thinking they are somehow separate from the rest of nature in terms of their biological drives.
> Having children bestows the incomparable gift of life on other people (your children). Bestowing that gift is the part of having children that makes someone happy. It's not a self centered happiness; the day-to-day of raising children is frequently miserable.
They're not saying they're making the world a better place, they're saying that the person they gave birth to would be happy to be alive and that happiness gives joy to the parent (in addition to satisfying base survival needs I suppose).
> Some of us choose not to participate in this willingly, others will delude themselves into thinking they are somehow separate from the rest of nature in terms of their biological drives.
I don't see anyone deluding themselves other than the people who think not having children is a moral position to take. It's a valid personal choice but nothing more.
> Not denying that, but you can't deny that that is a selfish thing, wanting to bestow joy to yourself.
It's only selfish if you disregard other people and/or hurt them in the process of enjoying yourself. There's nothing selfish about bestowing joy on yourself if it's also a net positive for everyone else.
I don't think your use of the world "selfish" in this debate (with me or the other commenters) has helped your argument. It implies something negative where having children is going to be viewed subjectively and objectively positive by most people. Maybe a better term would be satisfying? That covers that the individual parent benefits but also doesn't imply that having children is hurting others.
> Maybe a better term would be satisfying? That covers that the individual parent benefits but also doesn't imply that having children is hurting others.
I certainly wouldn't say satisfying, because you are deliberately ignoring any negative impacts of having children and focusing only on the positives. You say so yourself above.
I don't know if you agree that there can sometimes be negative consequences but you're opting not to speak of them to spare the feelings of parents (perhaps including yourself) or whether you genuinely believe that child birth has no negative consequences on other people or society, ever.
I'd say that's debatable at best. It depends entirely on where you live and what the impact of that child is on society and the environment.
A child's immense carbon footprint throughout life is a good example of how a child being born can be detrimental to the ecosystems we all depend on. That will remain true until (if we ever do) find a way to reduce our carbon footprints to zero or negative and in my opinion, is a reason to limit the number of children you have.
Two kids seems like a good compromise. More than that and you are adding to the problem. 'Be fruitful and multiply' does not serve our species as a mantra as well as it once did.
I don't agree. Human's use resources and not all humans will make a massive impact directly but what if one of their grandchildren does? People should have as many children as they feel comfortable with, without judgement from others. There's a lot more to life than minimizing carbon footprint in the immediate term. Otherwise we could just wipe out the human race to create a utopia. Malthusianism has been thoroughly debunked at this point.
> Malthusianism has been thoroughly debunked at this point.
It really hasn't, it has merely been updated, and yet people like yourself deliberately ignore the revisions and always focus on the obsolete original argument from the 1700's.
The only thing that has been debunked was Malthus prediction that human populations grow exponentially whereas the food production grows at an arithmetic rate. That hasn't proven true because we produce more than enough food for everyone (yet people are still hungry), but population it still continues to grow in a way we cannot accommodate even now for a variety of reasons.
Besides, the main thing people disliked about Malthus's initial prediction was not that it simply suggested limiting population growth (although the religious types certainly balked at this), but rather what his predictions implied in terms of future solutions to the problem; i.e. euthanasia, eugenics and mandatory sterilisations.
They are the main reasons people don't like to entertain the idea of population control, which is fair enough; but they are ideological arguments against population control, not practical ones.
I'd suggest reading more about this though, because I think you've just picked up on the 'Malthus was debunked' soundbite that people like to repeat ad nauseaum without really understanding the debate around it and how it has evolved into the modern era.
The peak population numbers provided by the UN that supposedly 'debunked' this theory have been repeatedly updated and revised because they don't hold. Even the idea of a 'peak' population is one that is not univerally accepted as it only factors in prosperity among developed nations leading to lower birth rates. It does nothing to account for the mantra many religions have of 'be fruitful and multiply'.
The religious are going to be primary drivers of population growth going forward while secular societies are those that are falling below replacement rates for births.
It was originally supposed to peak at 9 billion. Then it was revised to 11 billion. Then 13 billion. Now it sits somewhere around 15 billion because the models used to estimate the peak population numbers are imperfect and do not take into account all variables.
Besides, Malthusianism has nothing to do with the point of my post, which is that we are slowly poisoning the ecosystems we depend on because we consume and waste too much.
That is an entirely separate issue to raw population numbers and is an issue of poor waste management, over-consumption spurred by a an addiction to perpetual growth (in capitalist terms) and ineffective logistics.
The main problem isn't how many people we have, that's just an amplifier of other problems. The main problem we have is one of greed and apathy and an insistence on infinite growth on a planet with finite resources.
You've changed the topic of conversation into something else to avoid addressing my point.
> There's a lot more to life than minimizing carbon footprint in the immediate term.
Which is a profoundly selfish (yes, selfish, I'll stand by that) sentiment given the shit state our global ecosystems are in as a direct result of our wasteful, greedy culture and highly self-centred, amoral economic model.
If you gave a single shit about the future of the species (as well as other species) instead of just your own DNA you would be trying to minimise your footprint every day.
A relevant quote from National Geographic:
The number of people does matter, of course.
But how people consume resources matters a lot more. Some of us leave much bigger footprints than others. The central challenge for the future of people and the planet is how to raise more of us out of poverty—the slum dwellers in Delhi, the subsistence farmers in Rwanda—while reducing the impact each of us has on the planet.
The population question has not been answered, it has merely evolved and expanded. Anyone suggesting otherwise is deliberately trying to shut down debate.
It seems it's you that has changed the topic of our conversation. I said that having children is not a selfish act. Now you say it's not population growth, but lifestyle that is the issue. Great, but that has nothing to do with having children.
The first world is going to be in an actual crisis (not a theoretical future one) if we don't increase the reproduction rate. Look at what is happening in Japan with massive labor shortages, too many elderly to take care of, broken economy...
> The central challenge for the future of people and the planet is how to raise more of us out of poverty—the slum dwellers in Delhi, the subsistence farmers in Rwanda—while reducing the impact each of us has on the planet.
The central challenge to every individual is to survive and reproduce. People know this at a very intrinsic level. Before you can worry about people halfway across the world, you need to be able to eat, put a roof over your head, have children (if you want them -- most do) and support them.
Humanity is not a centrally planned, intelligently designed organism. It's emergent behavior from individuals following their genetic will to participate in evolution.
FWIW, in my opinion, it's pretty gross to make parenting out to be this egotistical, self centered thing. You're shitting on the most consequential experience that most people have in their entire life.
My evidence (as I explained above) is the entire field of evolutionary biology and the fact that we are still mammals with the same instinctual drives behind our reproduction.
What's yours, beyond a sense of disgust at the suggestion that you are still just an animal; and a desire to be seen as a paragon of virtue because you had sex and made little versions of yourself?
Been busy, but my god you're a jackass. If you're going to cite evolutionary biology when examining people's motives, you should at least familiarize yourself with the proximate vs. ultimate cause dichotomy. It explains pretty clearly what you seem to be missing about why people have children.
Aside from eradicating the human race, any changes to climate will have to be driven by humans. Someone’s child will help solve the problem. It could be your’s.
> They are so used to live their own lives that they have extremely hard time compromising any part of it.
I say that when someone having extremely hard time doing something, he/she just doesn't need that something hard enough. Most of the people rarely have hard time eating or drinking or watching interesting movie or spending time with friends.
Before XX century it was extremely hard to live alone, unless one have stable source of income or an inheritance. For lay people family was just a question of survival. Children was the only recipe of aging in dignity.
It is still valid in XXI century, but now there are other ways to live one's life. Forties is not an age of retirement, but a most active age of reaping rewards and even starting a new ventures. There are other means of self realization besides family and children. I don't see anything particularly bad about it.
Good news is there are still people who get married and have kids. Bad news is they're definitely the less introspective (for lack of a less offensive word) than the ones that don't get married.
My interpretation is that we finally have the freedom from cultural norms to really do whatever we please, but with great freedom comes great responsibility, not just to society but to our own long-term selves. Perhaps these people you talk about have chosen poorly, very poorly indeed, with this freedom. Nothing to do but advise the ones who might listen, and build a moat (physical or mental) that can protect you and your loved ones from them when shit hits the fan.
> I have been lucky enough to be able to work and live in several countries around the world. One thing in common I noticed in all these places is that guys and girls don't have time and don't want to commit to a stable long relation.
This could be selective though. If you're living in expat communities in global hubs, everyone knows people are there for only a short time, so its not worth investing in long term commitment.
Pope Francis talks a lot about this in Amoris Laetitia[1] on the topic of Love in the Family. I've only finished the first two chapters but so far he has talked a lot about the same points you mentioned, and brought a lot of insights. My memory is failing me right now on specifics, but it's a very useful and insightful read for anyone who has a family, even if you're not Catholic.
I know you're just describing your personal impression and don't claim them to be universally true.
But allow me to present some evidence, er, anecdote to the contrary: I have also traveled the world and lived on three continents. I met lots of cool people and was lucky enough to make friends with some of them in all the places that I visited. I never observed the same as you apparently did, namely that they invested themselves in nothing but their career, traveling, parties, etc.
As a matter of fact, coming to think of it, a lot of the people I know (most of them college age) were also from abroad and made sure to stay involved with the family business back home as much as they could. Also, a lot of my friends were actually couples, showing that they cared for more than just work and individual leisure. Some of them got married since.
Of course, differences may be due to a number of reasons. What area of work you're in, for example. What geographical location you're in. And naturally, you probably tend to make friends with people that are to some degree similar in some respect. Also, there's varying degrees of peer pressure to like the same things if you want to be part of the in-crowd (or any crowd you like, really). Oh, and let's not forget: cultural background.
So I don't think you can generalize as much as you did in your post.
Can you give examples of how people have become more intolerant of families flying with kids? Every flight I've been on where there was a kid crying the whole time, nobody so much as flinched. I think people understand that kids cry, and the situation is only worsened in a pressurized cabin. I'm curious what specific experiences you had that made you make that statement?
And on the child-parent relationship front, we are not doing much better. As a result, kid going to schools that make them fit in cutting out creativity. It is much more rewarding to home school your kids and spends time with them bith in terms of their success later on and emotional development.
A lot of people have kids _for themselves_. There are a lot of other endeavours one can pursue that will bring happiness. I think where we fail as a society, is in teaching ourselves how to find those pursuits, surround ourselves with friends, and avoid loneliness.
> The mantra is to get rich and retire at 40
Hrm, I question the circle of people you're surrounded by. Many millennials are struggling to afford the basics, let alone travel or have a family!
This is a contentious and potentially unpopular opinion, but I posit that having children borders on unethical at this point in history. We've wrecked the planet and have growing anti-intellectual culture.
Adopt a child. They will have an environmental impact whether you adopt them or not; presumably you will provide them a better life than an orphanage, and you can experience the joys and pains of parenthood.
I think that intelligence is much more environmentally driven rather than genetic, though I don't have any proper references for that. I would argue that, in a properly functioning society, intellectualism, assuming it's strongly tied to wealth, wouldn't really be heritable beyond one generation.
Combating anti-intellectualism as a trend is probably more complicated than just trying to get the existing educated to have more children then the existing uneducated.
> One might argue intellectuals have an obligation to procreate.
They already did and their kids are building the world's largest and most powerful surveillance and propaganda systems at Facebook and Google. Unfortunately the "G" in FAANG does not stand for "Greenpeace".
And whose tax money will be looking after you in your old age, when you have no family of your own to take care of you? The children of those ‘unethical’ people you tediously condescend so proudly up on your high horse.
I think having kids is scientifically proven to make you unhappy and greatly increase your stress levels. It’s no wonder people just put off having kids until they can, or pass on having them altogether.
I have less than five kids, but more than one kid.
My kids cause me a lot of stress. The burden of knowing I have to deal with them and their energetic, ridiculous antics every day when I get home really drains me. I don't really have time to exercise anymore because from sun-up to sundown I am dealing with them, so I'm slightly overweight and out of shape in a way I was not before I had kids. My diet isn't as diverse as it was before I had kids either because I can't go to the same places I used to or take the time to prepare what I used to prepare. I've stayed in the job I have now for longer than I should just because I worry about keeping a steady salary, paying my bills, and caring for my kids more than I ever worried about those things before. I don't spend a lot of money on self-care or personal enjoyment anymore because I need to save it in case something goes wrong and I need to spend the money on them.
Am I less happy? YES. I am less happy than before.
But if I was given the choice to go back, I wouldn't. I wouldn't even consider it. Not even for a millisecond. I don't know why and I really don't need to know why, but having kids is just better than being happy. I don't want to be happy, I want to be a good dad. It's true that being a parent makes you less happy, but it also makes happiness irrelevant (for the most part). It probably has something to do with evolution.
Well, you have to make time for things you want to do. What we have done raising our kids is that we have one parent going to the gym, the other one is taking care of kids. You can do it if you are committed. Do not give up!
Yes, it is rewarding to be a parent at the end of the day when they fall asleep. :)
My wife and I have two kids, we are both in the best shape of our lives, eat better than before, and our kids are quite healthy - participating in gymnastics, volleyball, and roller derby.
I could pay for a nanny or childcare of some sort for portions of the day and allow myself to focus on things like food quality, exercise, etc. I prefer to sacrifice those things to be with my kids whenever I am not working because I think it is important for me to invest that time now when they are most impressionable. But that preference isn't something I seem to have much control over. It's what I think is right, so I do it. I guess I could choose to do what I think is wrong, but that doesn't seem like a choice as much as a character failure.
Also, my kids are very young. As they get older, I expect to have more time. The early years are the absolute hardest in terms of time. It does get better as they get older and have activities to participate in outside the home.
Do not judge too harshly... it may not be personal choice.
Life is hard as parent but a variety of things can exacerbate problems such as: both husband and wife working, work place requires long travel, age gap between children, having children with special needs etcetra..
> But if I was given the choice to go back, I wouldn't. I wouldn't even consider it.
There's a speech in the movie Parenthood [1] that expresses a lot of what you just said. With a kid (or kids), the highs are higher, the lows lower. Some want to be on a roller coaster, others are happier on a merry-go-round.
The highs are higher, lows are lower idea seems right. And a lot of the value comes from that. Life in more real, more genuine when you aren't as insulated from pain and joy.
It's very complicated. Having kids at home makes you less happy (because they're work). But men who have had kids are significantly happier than men who never had kids once the kids are out of the house: https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-having-children-make-people-...
> By the time the 2016 survey rolled around, fathers were 40% more likely than childless men to see themselves as very happy.
By age 45, 86% of people have had kids, and only 6% of those wish they had not had kids. By contrast, out of those who didn't have kids, more than half wish they did. Even more remarkably, among all adults age 45+, as many people wish they had five or more kids as wish they had no kids (11%).
There is pretty much no other life choice (college, career, etc.) that almost every body does that almost nobody regrets.
It's very socially unacceptable to admit you regret having had your kids. Even to an anonymous stranger conducting a phone poll.
I am much more inclined to believe studies that ask for self-reported happiness and compare to life events / states like childlessness without directly asking "do you regret your kids". From what I understand, having children is negatively correlated with happiness in those sorts of studies.
> I am much more inclined to believe studies that ask for self-reported happiness and compare to life events / states like childlessness without directly asking "do you regret your kids".
Did you reply to the wrong comment? That's why the parent poster led with this quote from IFS:
> By the time the 2016 survey rolled around, fathers were 40% more likely than childless men to see themselves as very happy.
> fathers were 40% more likely than childless men to see themselves as very happy.
That part of the study is about the same fathers who are now aged 50-70 and whose children have generally left the house and are no longer children.
I guess if you see it as in investment for future happiness when you're old, you can interpret it as "children make you happy", but not if you prefer to be happy now and over the next ~18 years.
It's like saying college is an investment for when your old. You may have loved learning about new things, but still rather not have to do a bunch of meaningless homework assignments,
You can actually enjoy being a parent immediately and simultaneously not like all the sacrifices. IT's a deeper kind of commitment. For some people, it's the first time they have actually loved something more than themselves. It's hard to express.
The "science" you're referring to shows that parenting makes people less "happy" in any given moment while doing it and more "content" overall, more "satisfied" in older age. Moreover, there are significant country-by-country differences in these stats that seem to be tied to availability of high-quality, low-cost childcare and healthcare. One place to look for some overview of some of these studies is https://contemporaryfamilies.org/brief-parenting-happiness/
Probably referencing the use of the phrase "scientifically proven" and doubting the assertion being made and that there is in fact "science" that backs it up.
I think the intention is a quote rather than a scare quote.
It's a little awkward to quote a single word like that. In that circumstance the following words "... you're referring to" serve the same function. But it does highlight the notion of "you were looking for science, here is science".
I feel as though having children will make a lot of people very happy. But there is also a significant part(>1%) of the population that would be miserable.
I believe a lot of the unhappiness is often from someone who was pressured into a choice they didn't critically think about or didn't want but caved in. Even if the pool of people is small the experience could be quite negative. Where as all the people who always wanted them will be happy.
I took care of my brother and sisters a lot as a child and it made it very clear that I never wanted children.
There are a lot of things I didn't enjoy as a child that I enjoy as an adult. Raising children is different than caring for siblings, no disrespect to your personal choice.
Plenty, my wife is a nurse and plenty of the women explain how they had one and then just never wanted another one after because of regret. The nurse closer to her age straight up says it. I got plenty of warnings from coworkers about having children and most of their wives pick up most of the slack. If you are gushing about your kids no one is going to open up about a taboo subject like that.
That is just one of the many reasons I don't want kids. I have plenty of functional health issues that make keeping on weight a chore never mind a pain free day and yet again that is just the tip of the iceberg.
People with kids love to complain about how terrible it is to have kids. But when you poll older people who had kids and ask them if they’d “do it over again” nine out of them say they would. Meanwhile, more than half of people who never had kids wish they had at least one. (See the Pew polling I linked above.)
My original post agreed with the Pew data. Most people would most likely be happy having children.
I am aware of this bias. My Grandmother in law is blunt about never having wanted children where as lots of people are just complaining due to stress. That is why I give more weight to people who have fully raised children and are no longer stressed out by them. My anecdotal evidence is similar to Pew.
My boss complains all the time but I know he doesn't regret it even thought he looks like he got hit by a train some days.
I prefer to focus on regret rates among childless men with vasectomies who had their operation after the age of 31. I say this because not having children =/= not wanting them at 45. There could be a lack of money, a partner, fertility issue etc that could all lead to this situation.
==If you are gushing about your kids no one is going to open up about a taboo subject like that.==
This is true. Likewise, if you are explaining all the reasons you can't or don't want to have kids someone may be more likely to agree by saying "I wish I didn't have kids."
I don't disagree with what you have said, just know that taking care of your siblings is not the same as being the parent of a child (legally, emotionally, physically, etc.). When you compare them, it detracts from the broader point you have made.
So where's the line? If your niece lives with you while your sister is incarcerated does that "count" as being similar enough to parenthood to "justify" a choice to have or not have children? If you were a full time live-in nanny? If your dead beat uncle drops your baby cousin off at your house every day? Step-parent? Foster parent? Teacher?
It seems incredibly silly to completely discount all your life experience when making important decisions...
FWIW, I've known someone who very much wanted kids then she became a full time live in nanny. That changed her mind completely about having kids of her own. She still loves working with children, and she still works with kids, just not in a live-in situation. She'll probably work with children her whole (working) life.
>How many parents have you ever heard say, "I wish I didn't have kids"?
My mother said those exact words to me every single day. Either that are similar stuff like "you ruin my life, I wish you were never born."
But, it's not something that is socially acceptable to say, so how many times you've heard is is completely irrelevant. I doubt my mother would say that to anyone else. It's like saying "how many times have you seen someone say 'I am sexually attracted to children?' None? Ok, now we can conclude pedophilia and childhood sexual abuse doesn't exist!"
> How many parents have you ever heard say, "I wish I didn't have kids"?
More and more, now that the taboo is breaking down to some degree. This has been the subject of some recent press reporting.[0][1]
That said, it is disturbing to me, at least, how people’s having children might rewire their brains. They might like their new role only because of certain changes in brain chemistry that result from parenthood. Their fondness for being parents is therefore something forced on them in a way, it is not a matter of actual choice.
"Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don't go as planned."
"Certain changes in brain chemistry" result in us adjusting to be approximately as happy as they always are even in situations which one would predict way less or way more happiness.
I've heard a lot of parents say something along those lines, though usually softened a bit: "I love my kids but if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't have had them."
> How many parents have you ever heard say, "I wish I didn't have kids"?
I have heard a number of friends say this, though almost always indirectly. There is a real stigma associated with being unhappy with parenthood, but many people do not seem to enjoy the process.
From my own observations, eventually most parents adjust their own personal "bar" for happiness and more or less accept their lot. I'm sure they get something positive out of it, but it seems to be a tradeoff for other sources of happiness and life satisfaction which usually become unavailable to parents.
==I have heard a number of friends say this, though almost always indirectly.==
Is it possible you are inferring it a certain way because of your bias? For instance, I complain about having kid all the time, but I wouldn't give him up for anything.
==There is a real stigma associated with being unhappy with parenthood, but many people do not seem to enjoy the process.==
This is something only a non-parent would say. Nobody enjoys the sleepless nights, dirty diapers or unexplained whining, but those are part of the same process that leads from laughing, to crawling, to walking, to speaking, to reasoning.
==From my own observations, eventually most parents adjust their own personal "bar" for happiness and more or less accept their lot. I'm sure they get something positive out of it, but it seems to be a tradeoff for other sources of happiness and life satisfaction which usually become unavailable to parents.==
Your wording implies that you have never actually asked a parent if they get anything out of it, but just make an assumption to fit your mental model. Everything in life is a trade-off, that isn't the same as wishing you didn't do something.
> Is it possible you are inferring it a certain way because of your bias? For instance, I complain about having kid all the time, but I wouldn't give him up for anything.
Not being happy with parenting doesn't imply wanting to give up your child. It just means that you made a bad decision that you're now stuck with / making the best of.
It could be that I was simply reading into things, but I have been told directly by someone that it had been a bad choice. But as people do, they adapted and moved on, though their life is very different now and I barely recognize them anymore.
I've also known happy parents. It's just silly to say that parenting is automatically a happy event. Nothing in life is going to be enjoyable for every person.
Having kids takes a lot of time and money. If you work till 5 you need to pay for childcare, which isn't cheap at all and might even be akin to doubling your rent. Mom is also working so you can't just unload domestic work and childcare to someone else to worry about. If you are entry level chances are you need to get there before the boss and stay there after if you ever want to not be entry level, and work weekends during busy season, so even that 40hr week can go up to 50-60. If you are a woman asking for maternity leave in an entry level job could jeopardize your entire career trajectory. Even in superficially liberal SF, VC firms have been known to discriminate against women entrepreneurs just from the possibility that they might be pregnant one day. People can scarcely keep housing costs below 30% of their net income.
People are waiting until they have more money and a job that actually gives them time to raise a family. The real reason why people are putting off having kids is that it's not 1950 anymore.
Leaving aside the fact that you have not substantiated your claim, it could very well be that having kids in America makes you miserable, because the safety net is gutted or non-existent.
There is almost no maternal/paternal leave, health care costs are astronomical, so are child care costs, which are almost necessary, because the normal multi-generational family has been systematically destroyed over the last half-century, both with advertising and economic pressure. Not to mention the lack of compromising skills in both partners, which has been exacerbated by identity politics.
So yes, in context, maybe having kids is miserable*
>but it's because of the cost of raising children and not the children themselves
that's the equivalent of saying "if I control for skin colour I observe no discrimination". The cost of raising children both financially and in time, is intrinsically linked to raising children.
It is often asserted that spousal relationships suffer from the routine chores that come with raising children, and that is not going away. Don't control for the thing you want to measure.
Wouldn't that also contradict the biological imperative to pass on our genes? If having children had an overall and prolonged negative impact on your stress levels, it would also impede humans' ability to effectively procreate since stress has a direct impact on life expectancy and fertility. I can understand that in the short-term, that might be the case, but over a longer period (say the last 10k years) it does not appear to be true.
The stronger "biological imperative" is to have sex; birth control is quite a recent invention. And once you had kids, it doesn't matter that your life expectancy or fertility drops a bit because your genes are already passed on.
There's no way to objectively measure happiness, so no that hasn't been proven.
Personally, I've found having a kid to be less stressful, less expensive, and more rewarding than my college/career experience. I'm happier now than I ever was before. Yeah it's hard sometimes, but what isn't?
That's like saying it's scientifically proven that people who invest are poorer than people who hoard their cash (and don't invest). True in the short term, false in the long term.
That's the biggest crock I've ever read on HN. Where did this "science" come from? A bunch of self-obsessed journalists I'm sure or maybe /r/childfree?
The people who are unhappy with kids are the people who are unhappy, depressed and bitter to begin with, lacking all empathy. You have to be a pretty self-absorbed individual to not love the innocence and charm of children.
Every person I know with a family loves their children to death and are very content and happy. Happiness consists in pursuing the ultimate unchanging good and increasing in virtue, nothing passing in this life can give you ultimate everlasting happiness. It is a philosophical, metaphysical and theological question, not a question of children, free-time or money. Children are a good thing, but they're not the ultimate object whereby one becomes happy.
Mm, a radical idea these days! :) Lately I have come to realise that searching for the “cultured, polished being” and the “ideal life” actually made me feel even more insecure and trapping myself to my comfort zone. Oh yes doing a marathon is really stretching me. So is trying out new food. Watching a horrific war drama ... from a sofa. They’re all things that _I_ want, that _I_ control. When I get thrown into something totally random, especially when it’s stupid — like why is that kid crying? It’s just a sticker! — it distresses me a lot. Which is silly! Life is meant to be full of all sorts of randomness and silliness! So bizarrely, I am trying to do more normal things now. Like cleaning the house manually, talking to the old man next door, falling in love. All feels uncomfortable, but I feel more alive too!
The mantra is to get rich and retire at 40 years old! Travel the world and have fun.
By the time they are somewhat satisfied with theirs status they have reached ~35 years old. At that point is more difficult to find a person and accept to share your life and habits with them.
They are so used to live their own lives that they have extremely hard time compromising any part of it.
I think the society has (wrongly) evolved towards an individualist model at the expenses of families.
I have noticed that people have been more and more intolerant to family flying with kids. It is hard to find kids friendly restaurants, hotels and resorts. People invite you to parties and kids are always not welcome. Not to mention also the additional cost associated with having a family.
But you know what ? I am so happy every day when I come home and my kids run towards me and we play and have fun. I and my wife coudln't be happier!
A piece of advice, stop running, take time off and think about your life beyond work and money. Traveling is fun but is way more fun and interesting when you can share it with some one you care about, like your family!