Hacker News Reader

Comment by abenga | Hacker News Reader

Having children is a horrible deal for women though. Given the effect on their careers, health, and social life, I can understand why fewer would willingly choose to have them. This explains why whenever civil protection and economic freedom gives them any semblance of a choice, the number of children they get goes way down.

View on HN

> Having children is a horrible deal for women though

Women in every rich country have fewer children than they desire:

https://medium.com/migration-issues/how-big-is-the-fertility...

This is evidence in support of it being a bad deal.

If it was a good deal, women would have more children than they want because the economics were right

Yes and no. Maybe I should have quoted the following part of the parent's comment:

> whenever civil protection and economic freedom gives them any semblance of a choice, the number of children they get goes way down.

Which is clearly falsified by the link I posted.

I certainly agree with you that the economics of raising children is not right in western countries, but this still doesn't deter women from wanting more children than they're having, so I don't think it's at all fair to say that fewer are willingly choosing to have them.

I guess that depends on that womans interests. Many women (and men, but less) are simply not career driven. Many stay at home parents build wonderful social lives around other parents at playgroups, schools etc and see their friends more than their working comparatives. Your health is also in theory a lot easier to stay on top of without a job - not so much with small children, but definitely with double digits.

What’s so great about a career? I grew up loving programming. My career had disabused me of that long since. I am indeed very lucky and grateful that my income can support my entire family such that my wife could take a break from her career (in social services, a hell much worse than my own career) to raise our child full time. I would trade the frustrations of tech to be a stay at home dad in a heartbeat.

Effect on health? Social life? Career?

That doesn't make a lot of sense. The impact on health is transitory and most women recover just fine after birth. Social life can actually get better when it expands to other parents. Career? I guess if your goal is to grasp the golden ring that's true.

But my god, surely our lives have more meaning than living as long as possible, maintaining the social life we had in our 20's as long as possible, and dedicating our lives to our careers.

Yikes, I'm not sure how accomplished and how satisfied with my life I'd be if I got to my 90's and successfully fulfilled those goals. I'd feel rather empty to me honest.

But this opinion seems very common on social media. It's like there is no worthy goal in life beyond optimizing health, eating at trendy restaurants and becoming CEO.

Burdening someone with existence without their consent just to give my life meaning seems a bit selfish to me. Everyone's calculus of how likely their future kids' lives are likely to be comfortable, rich, and fulfilling is obviously different, but to me, it seems like an iffy time to assume that the world will continue getting better indefinitely.

Life is more than just being comfortable and rich.

The world has always “been ending”. Look back at any period in the last couple of centuries and you’ll find doomsayers. They were wrong.

But hey maybe the world will get worse overall, but it’s not like humans haven’t suffered through worse. And just because times are tough it doesn’t mean you can’t have a fulfilling life with human connections being a key part to that fulfillment.

Dont have kids if you don’t want to but I’m not going to put my life on hold because maybe the world will get crappy.

It's not my life though, is it? That's already a done deal, and I wasn't given a choice. The question is whether I should bring forth a new one.

Sure it's not your life, but just because you didn't find fulfillment, or riches, or happiness, doesn't mean your children won't.

Like I said, don't have kids if you don't want to. Nobody should.

But the idea the world is doomed and your offspring are destine for a life of misery isn't really based on reality.

Women who've had kids live longer & have fewer diseases btw. Breastfeeding reduces risk of breast cancer. It's not such a bad deal actually.

A career supporting yourself is also mostly just a way to increase profits for capital owners, what is fulfilling about that?

no problem, immigration's gonna fix it

Reply on news.ycombinator.com