> human kids are exotic pets for the wealthy or crazy
I'm having a hard time parsing that statement.
Are you suggesting that only the wealthy can realistically afford to have children today, or that parents increasingly treat their children like status symbols or pets?
Both interpretations strike me as pretty dystopian.
> Are you suggesting that only the wealthy can realistically afford to have children today, or that parents increasingly treat their children like status symbols or pets?
A little of both. Kids are a luxury good in the current macro.
The cost to raise a child from 0-18 in the US in 2023 dollars is ~$330k (Brookings, USDA). This does not include daycare (~$1k/month if you can find a slot) nor college. No sick leave nor paternal leave mandate, no job security, and so on. 2.5M children experience homelessness each year in the US. 14M are food insecure.
Look at wage data, correlate against housing and other non discretionary expenses, back out to affordability.
> Both interpretations strike me as pretty dystopian.
Welcome to the shit show. “To know is to suffer.” —- Nietzsche
I’m unsure I agree with this. South Korea, Japan, China, etc. This is clear from the total fertility rate, how it presents is just a different shade in each country. Outside of the Nordics and parts of Europe, I don’t think anywhere else puts an effort into making being a parent not suck. And even places putting material resources into family and parent support, it doesn’t move the needle.
ok, i don't know about south korea and what's going on there with the extremely low fertility rate. but china has way more support for children than the US. china's low fertility rate is not because of social or economical factors like elsewhere but because of the one-child policy which has been abolished a few years ago.
I don’t think anywhere else puts an effort into making being a parent not suck
i don't believe that is true. not even in developing countries. the reason we can't see that is that developing countries suffer from other problems. but those problems don't motivate people there to not have children. on the contrary.
And even places putting material resources into family and parent support, it doesn’t move the needle
because material considerations are not a big factor. you were arguing that having children is expensive, and that children are only to be afforded by the wealthy, and treated as a status symbol.
but if that is a factor then it is only a factor in the united states and nowhere else in the world. especially not in developing countries.
Plants are the new pets, pets are the new kids, and human kids are exotic pets for the wealthy or crazy (or a combination of those traits).