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Comment by drnonsense42 | Hacker News Reader

This is the type of modern wisdom that the person you’re responding to is deliberately contradicting. This modern wisdom is why our birth rate (at least for citizens) is so catastrophically low. Sure, you can’t be a 20yo janitor with a housewife, 3 kids, a home, and new iPhones every 2 years, but plenty of people go for kids before they’re “ready” and make it just fine.

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Why is it 'catastrophically' low? It is not obvious to me that the UK, for example, would not enjoy much higher standards of living if it had half the population. Technology and innovation does not increase the availability of good land and nice housing, but it does massively increase productivity in other areas.

I would also argue that plenty of people that go for children who are not ready for it don't make it just fine. More importantly, their children, that didn't ask for any of it, end up suffering because of their mistakes. Plenty of people have psychological issues of various degrees because of poor parenting. 15% of families in the UK are lone parent families! By age 12 a staggering 40% (!) of children are not living with both birth parents! [1] And these figures are almost twice as bad for low-income families. And out of the children that do live with both birth parents, 11-28% of the parents report an unhappy relationship. That is the catastrophe.

Humans have this strange blindspot where they tend to be irrational and irresponsible about the decision to procreate. Previous generations did not have much of a choice because of lack of available contraception, lack of knowledge. Our generation has no excuse.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

Honestly, I find certain topics, like the need to procreate, are impossible to reason for or against; I might as well be handing out Bible copies. But, an obvious argument for procreation is an aging population, coupled with swelling national debt largely affected by the need to take care of them and a decrease in youth which can produce products to reduce this debt. I have not seen any intellectually honest way of dealing with this beyond “automation will solve everything”. That’s just one example, anyway.

Secondly, I don’t think your data on single parent families really disproves anything, specifically because that data is highly confounded by drug addicts, high school dropouts, unwed couples, accidental pregnancies, and dozens of other factors. If we’re to reason in good faith, the advice I and others are advocating for is that you don’t need to be a homeowner with a 200k+ salary, although of course you should be a reasonably mature, employed adult with a mature partner.

I think it’s in poor faith as well to reduce this to “if you feel a need to have children, you’re irrational and still stuck in go-forth-and-multiply mode”. But, again, this is not an issue anyone can find common ground over with reason or data (which you can find to support any conclusion), and I expect the HN crowd falls on a particular side of this on average, so I won’t argue further.

> It is not obvious to me that the UK, for example, would not enjoy much higher standards of living if it had half the population.

The problem is the transition to this lower population. You’d have a period of 40/50 years where older people severely outnumber those who are relatively young, leading to massive increase in per capita healthcare expenditures coupled with a decrease in productivity. So no, at least bot in our lifetimes.

I think your advice is correct for those that want kids. The issue becomes contentious when this is advocated to people who mostly are on the other side of that decision. Going for kids before you are ready is still aligned with ‘wanting kids’.

Wanting is only a part of the equation. You need to both be willing and able to be a competent parent. Some people lack the emotional stability required, for example. Others don't tend to see such long-term projects to completion, abandoning their hobbies even a few years in. Yet others just don't have the resources, unfortunately as it is, or have other factors significantly limiting their ability to be good parents.

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