Comment by qqtt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qqtt | Hacker News Reader

Developed societies seem to be shifting into a more "selfish" paradigm, where the question of the day is "what can this situation really do for me?". Day to day actions are framed in these terms, and the result is that raising children becomes a harder and harder question to justify in this paradigm. Even in this thread, having kids is seen through this odd eugenics-style paradigm of - well, I have to counteract the balance of idiocracy style effects and have a responsibility to carry on my family's genetic material.

Children are expensive. Children take away a lot of your otherwise "free" time (although spending time with them can hardly be considered an objective "waste"). Grandparents don't want to put in the time either, they want to go on cruises and fully "enjoy" their life (along the paradigm of "what can this really do for me?").

Ultimately we end up with parents who want to offload their kids, stuffing them into (expensive) daycares earlier and earlier (despite what research says are negative effects of such early child separation). We have lost the traditional support system of older generations being around, living with new parents, and helping in a meaningful and impactful way with child raising. We have prioritized large inefficient housing, mostly as an investment vehicle, and have discounted the less economically-linked investment and rewards that come from raising children.

In any case, this is a perfect storm for dropping fertility rates, and it seems at this point these factors are so ingrained in developed economies that it can be considered a natural consequence of a population who has pivoted towards wealth building and economic priority.

Despite this shift towards selfish economic efficiency, is anyone really happier? Really really tough to say.

I can say that despite the cost, the career impact it had, and the completely changed dynamic of how I spend my time - raising kids has been the highlight of my life. I've never really been one for considering pure economic and personal efficiency though, and I've noticed I'm more and more of an outlier among my social circle.

> Developed societies seem to be shifting into a more "selfish" paradigm, where the question of the day is "what can this situation really do for me?"

I think that's not well supported as the source of the problem, even to the extent it may arguably be true: developed societies tend to have adopted strong social support mechanism, so that having lots of kids so that you have a chance that someone will be willing to support you in your old age is no longer necessary. That's also why some very rich countries are seeing less of the dropoff in natural population growth for their level of development; they also happen to be the ones with weaker social support systems.

When it comes to having children, there's plenty of selfishness on both sides of the decision.

I agree that people who remain childless often do so for some of the selfish reasons you describe, but let's not pretend that having a child is a selfless act. Many people have children because they believe doing so will give their lives meaning, because they want to carry on their family name/line, because they are afraid there will be no one to take care of them when they get old. They do so because they feel pressured by their family and friends to "join the club". They feel pressured by their parents to give them grandchildren. And hell, some people have kids by accident, due to a lack of family planning or education.

How many people decide to have a child because they want to enrich their communities, to help with future demographics and the future economy?

He's not saying it's selfish to not have children, he's saying the decision making process relies on determining the usefulness of a given activity, and kids rarely score high there. In the past it worked differently, I suppose at least partly these things were done because of tradition or because of religious encouragement. In the past they weren't doing it in some way that was significantly less selfish than us, but whatever reason they did it for the system would continue unlike it is today

Though, I remember having a conversation with some classmates in college, and the only one that said they enjoyed their childhood was the one who had been "outsourced". The rest of us just remembered being mostly bored.

> Grandparents don't want to put in the time either

Is that really the case?

The grandparents I know are all super eager to get grandchild time and go pretty far out of their way to make that easy for the parents. In the US and Europe anyway, I don’t know that many people elsewhere but I would assume it’s the same.

Especially in the US, geography can make it difficult but I don’t see that as a lack of motivation.

Maybe my sample is skewed but it’s definitely not all wealthy/educated/tech people.

Having kids is the "selfish" thing to do, especially in this thread. The economy and country will suffer, so bringing more sentient without their consent. These kids already have jobs ready for them, to fix things that their ancestors screwed up and now have a much bigger older population.

The rich and famous celebrities are asking to have more kids because they will need these cells to run their factory and sell product services. Economy needs to grow every year only for them.

Climate crisis also going to be extremely cruel to all species and these kids have to suffer the consequences of all the previous humans. Bringing them here is way too selfish. Even IPCC report was watered down.

https://scientistrebellion.com/we-leaked-the-upcoming-ipcc-r...

Additionally life is hard, cruel to many.

It's always others' needs. There might be many reasons to have kids but none of them is for the benefit of the potential kid.

Yeah. My son is 3, I'm very glad to know him. But looking at the world? Probably, I've just created suffering.

I mean, beyond the suffering of being a parent to a 3 year old ;)

Please disabuse yourself of these sentiments. There has never been a better time to be alive and your three year old will have a far better life than you or I. Climate change is a problem but there will be solutions.

Takes like that don't help IMO. In a way it was better in the past when people thought life was awful but that's just the way it is, you just do your job and live your life. Ironically, as life has gotten better we think more that suffering isn't inevitable, and if suffering isn't inevitable we should prevent it. Which the easiest way to do that, is to just not have kids.

> your three year old will have a far better life than you or I. Climate change is a problem but there will be solutions.

To be frank, this is completely false and may be you are getting wrong information. Climate change is already in irreversible state, there is no solution. Period.

Gov and corporations are not even trying to minimise it, just delaying until last moment. Humans will survive but it will be dystopian. The kids will suffer the worst. This is not exaggeration. Rich will just stay in gated community.

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