There are good things about having kids and bad things. This is one of those potential bad things. If you don’t want to deal with this possibility then simply don’t have kids.
Choosing to have kids or not pre-COVID came with a set of expectations, risks, and choices that were fairly well defined. Parental leave, childcare, proximity to family and friends, school, increased costs, medical treatemtn, etc. Parents could evaluate those based on what their employer offered and the experiences of their peers going through the same processes.
Now, with COVID, the entire world has changed. School is no longer school. Childcare doesn’t exist. Friends and family are socially distanced or inaccessible due to quarantine. Parks and beaches are closed. Vacations are extremely limited. Any social interaction has become a risk. None of these were risks that a reasonable parent would consider, and even for the paranoid ones, it is highly unlikely that anyone considered it all at once.
Given the extreme change we are going through, the “if you can’t handle it, don’t have kids argument” is just not realistic. A pandemic isn’t “just how life goes”.
Much of this pandemic is overrated. My friends and family aren’t socially distanced. Parks and beaches are actually open. Vacations are very easy and very popular. Social interaction is not a risk for the vast majority of healthy people.
If you’re scared of it, fine. Everyone in my life is not, and life is quite normal.
Have you considered that this attitude might be the reason this pandemic has so affected the US in particular?
The only reason we're in the mess we are is the utter and complete mismanagement of our response. And our collective heads-in-the-sand attitude to the whole thing.
Coronavirus isn’t the reason you haven’t met your friends and family in months. The disease isn’t violent enough to warrant that level of action. Everyone I know spent their Labor Day with their friends and families. That is your decision.
And that's the selfishness I'm calling out.
> That is your decision.
It's really not. I have elderly family members who are at risk from the disease. I have friends and family in other states and countries who I can't visit due to Covid travel restrictions. Do you know why those exist? Because we haven't been able to curb the spread of the disease. Because people keep saying "it's your decision" about social distancing and rather than actually doing something about the disease.
> Obesity is the reason healthcare premiums are high though.
That has nothing to do with the topic at hand. I can opt out of paying healthcare premiums. I can choose to stay fit. I can't choose not to get coronavirus and I definitely can't choose to travel someplace travel restrictions are in effect. It's an idiotic comparison, a weak deflection.
You suffer now because you’re afraid of death later. I enjoy my time now because I know death comes for us all.
"I enjoy my time now because I know death comes for us all."
Translation: I gotta have my fun because who cares if other people die or are inconvenienced.
But it's actually: 1. Shelter in place, -0.1% chance of death for everyone around you 2. Go out and have fun, +0.1% chance of death for everyone around you
You are choosing to put other people at risk because it makes you happy. It's the same as drunk driving; convenient for you but a risk for everyone. Just because you didn't hit anyone this time doesn't mean it's not selfish and irresponsible.
>'Given the extreme change we are going through, the “if you can’t handle it, don’t have kids argument” is just not realistic. A pandemic isn’t “just how life goes”.'
Maybe not a pandemic but it shouldn't be any shock that children make things much more complicated. It's, most of the time in the US today, a choice to have a child. The unexpected nature of a pandemic isn't really an excuse for me. One knows unexpected things happen with children, if you haven't prepared for those unplanned contingencies, that's on you as a parent. Should the same benefits be given to parents who maybe have to stay home more because they feel their kid a slightly larger burden than others? What if the child becomes autistic and you are required to spend more time with them?
Any situation like this sucks but at what point should it really be a businesses problem and when shouldn't it be? I think these are really interesting problems under normal circumstances, the Covid part is just businesses having to deal with them all at the same time rather than individually on a case-by-case. To show that this isn't just Covid, let me share with you a story about a few nurses I met who have been exploiting a hospital system for personal gain (and brag about it!), something that could ruin a small business with relative ease.
Big hospital near me has a policy of maternity leave for nursing staff, something like 6 months off, no questions asked whenever you have a child. Sounds fantastic on the surface. Well, this small pack of nurses all knowingly do the same thing, they have children as much as humanly possible, think on the order of 8-13 children. Because of their constant pregnancy and child birthing, they are effectively able to work only 6 months out of the year, 6 month vacations. Everyone else at this org, maximum time off in one stint is 3 weeks. This means, under this hospital's policy, the only way that I can take a month off is to either work at least 1 day each month. Say goodby to taking months of in winter to stay in warmer climate, say goodbye to benefits otherwise. These nurses though, who are easily able to save their salaries to cover their yearly costs, get all company benefits like healthcare. Is this 'fair'? As someone who isn't physically able to have children, I would argue no, it's not completely. This isn't to there should be nothing for these parents, I don't really know what the right answer is.
But, we are in a pandemic now. So the rest of your argument is moot.
> One knows unexpected things happen with children, if you haven't prepared for those unplanned contingencies, that's on you as a parent.
Sure, maybe a broken leg, or mono, or some other health issue could force the child to be home for a while. But not all schools close suddenly, and all other childcare options as well. What would planning for that look like exactly?
> Well, this small pack of nurses all knowingly do the same thing, they have children as much as humanly possible, think on the order of 8-13 children ... able to work only 6 months out of the year, 6 month vacations
As a father of two small children, I can confidently tell you that having a newborn is hardly a six month vacation.
Firm disagreement, change the word pandemic with cancer diagnosis, it's the same problem from the parent point of view. My point is, when, exactly, should the company be going above and beyond for you if it isn't spelled out in your contract?
> Sure, maybe a broken leg, or mono, or some other health issue could force the child to be home for a while. But not all schools close suddenly, and all other childcare options as well.
What about summer, schools close for months at a time. I understand what you are saying though, for the record, I'm not saying this is an easy situation. The reality though, like all catastrophe, there is going to be a bit of chaos and headache finding methods to resume 'normal' life.
> and all other childcare options as well. It's an absurd notion to say that _all_ other options closed, maybe businesses are but this isn't the only option.
> What would planning for that look like exactly? With first hand experience, it's quite straightforward. Parent coordination work hours, family members take care watching the younger members, close friends/neighbors pick up slack from the line. I guarantee you that there is someone out their willing to watch your kids for a few hours a day if you look hard enough.
Companies, Governments, Healthcare System all failed to prepare for this pandemic but parents are expected to? Should they be considering breast-feeding during a nuclear winter before having children?
What's a sufficient about of global life-altering change before they get the free pass?
And yet plenty of companies and healthcare organizations had prepared and are now doing fine. Nobody is asking anyone to consider every possible failure mode of society, that's absurd. It's not a crazy thing to plan for your kids in case something happens to you, as the parent. Having adequate finances in place to handle a year or two without income isn't some wild notion when we start discussing the well being of children, in my opinion. The idea is to be prepared in case something outside of your control prevents you from earning income. Heaven forbid on the ride to work you are struck by a drunk driver (or w/e uncontrolable accident) and are now stuck without the ability to work for the next two years. Having no plan for catastrophe when raising a child is simply poor judgement.
> What's a sufficient about of global life-altering change before they get the free pass?
Why should anyone get a free pass for their choices in life? Is it also the companies fault when the minimum wage they pay doesn't support a family of 6? What's a sufficient amount of servitude a company should pay to their employees past what is agreed upon in contract negotiations?
Maybe someone else forgot that _shit happens_ and didn't prepare or negotiate well, sucks to suck. The parents have very simple options. Renegotiate or tell the company to pound sound and go somewhere that will play ball with your demands. The people I truly feel sorry for is the children, they get throw into a terrible deal through no fault of their own.
This attitude -- which is pretty common in the US -- never fails to astound me.
First, a lot of babies are not planned. Birth control failures happen or young people learn the hard way the facts of life because they fooled around ended up pregnant before they had a good idea of how things worked and some people are essentially brainwashed from birth into believing that using birth control will send them straight to hell. And sometimes people think "I will take my chances just this one time" and that one time turns out to be enough to result in pregnancy.
That's without getting into the reality that a woman can end up pregnant as a consequence of rape.
Second, if all people successfully take this advice and simply don't have kids, then there is no one to take care of us in our old age as our species dies out, having promoted the idea "You only live once and you should live for today and just indulge selfishly."
Children are the social capital of the future. They are future workers and future tax payers and future caregivers that people who are currently hail and hardy will someday need -- unless you want to follow up this policy with "Let's just start executing people who fall ill with anything that could require long term convalescence and, also, start executing people when they hit a certain age so we don't have to deal with the frailty of old age."
(No, I am not being extremist. I'm really not.)
And I don’t think the human race is anything special and I’m more than happy to let it die off if we decide to stop having kids.
I also have a 33 year old son who is the result of failed birth control. I chose to not seek an abortion because I was already married to a man with whom I wanted kids, but I had originally intended to have them later.
I will suggest that most of your coworkers discussing their "carefully planned pregnancies" are people willing to talk about their experiences and/or carefully framing their experiences in a socially acceptable manner. Most people who enjoy conventional success are either fortunate to have lives that fit a certain framework relatively easily or they get good at pretending to fit it and covering up or leaving out the things the people around them wouldn't be comfortable hearing.
Basically, your position is one of "Everything needs to go right in your life all the time or a big fat fuck you from me." And that tends to cause the fabric of society to unravel because most people can't manage to force their life to go right every step of the way all the time. If their lives work, it's because they had some kind of safety net when things did go wrong at some point.
If you are rich enough, you can sometimes pretend this is not the case, but the money itself is a kind of safety net, so it's a BS position for wealthy people to take.
This advice that if if someone doesn't want to deal with the responsibilities of having children, then don't have children isn't going to result in the whole country's birth rate plummeting to zero. Demographic choices like these in a country of hundreds of millions don't change overnight. It'll be a continuation of the trend of developed countries' dropping birth rates. Humanity isn't in any danger of dying out [1].
While people of working age do support retirees, the idea that increasing population is an unqualified net good for society is a much more dubious proposal. Sustaining another human's life takes a lot of energy, on the order of hundreds of thousands of calories per day most of it from fossil fuels. Experiencing a declining population creates pressure to support retirees, but it's something Japan and European countries have been doing for a while now.
The rest of your comments seem to paint a very negative set of assumptions about childless people:
> ..there is no one to take care of us in our old age as our species dies out, having promoted the idea "You only live once and you should live for today and just indulge selfishly."
You assume that childless people are indulgent and live selfishly because...? Because they made different life decisions, you assume they selfish and indulgent?
> unless you want to follow up this policy with "Let's just start executing people who fall ill with anything that could require long term convalescence and, also, start executing people when they hit a certain age so we don't have to deal with the frailty of old age."
> (No, I am not being extremist. I'm really not.)
Is this a joke? Because I fail to see how anyone can convince themselves that this isn't an extremist view. You're literally trying to equate childlessness with extermination of the elderly, and execution of people with illnesses.
1. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Estimated-human-populati...
Edit: For clarity, the comment is clearly unsympathetic.
I have no doubt it is harder for my coworkers with kids now than it is usually, but I also know that they chose to have kids, and knew that would mean that they’d have more “work” in some cases than if they didn’t have kids.
But they chose to have kids, and I’m getting tired of these threads where everyone with kids seems to be saying that kids a purely a burden to be put up with, which is honestly what these complaints about it “being a full time job” sound like.