Ask HN: What was your reasoning for having kids?

Wikipedia has a list of 50 reasons why people don't https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_childlessness

> It seems like pretty much everyone accept this as the default position.

I never did. Never really got it either, and I have the same problems. I think most people are also religious which I am not, and I think that drives a lot of meaning and behavior. I believe it's actually the largest correlation with birthrate; more religious societies have more children.

I'll be a bit provocative and say that mostly I've come to believe that children are status symbols, especially for the non-religious.

It seems that you are having some sort of an existential crisis. What's the point of doing anything if you're going to die? Why work or develop or anything?

If we are all just dust in the wind why not just have the best life you can. For me that includes sharing my life with my children and watching them grow and discover the magical universe we happen to be in.

> That said, I really enjoyed life so far.

Keep thinking in this direction. Do you want others to enjoy their lives? Would you get emotional fulfillment from creating a life that is enjoyed by that life?

> Till that point I always thought death is something that happens to other people. Also I had this false believe that the tech like AGI or Neuralink will figure something out.

People who touch grass often knew that a long time ago. You are still the same kind of human, flaws and mortality, as your ancestors. It is safe to assume that will always be the case until we have solid proof otherwise.

Why did I have children? Having kids is part of the package whereby we are brainwashed into fitting into society.

Look at this progression:

We get educated to the highest possible so that we are able to obtain 'The Good Job'.

That 'Good Job' allows us to attract an 'Attractive Spouse', who will complement our 'Good Job' and allow us to 'Rise in Society'.

Then our 'Good Job' or 'Better Job' allows us to buy 'The Prestige Car' and to live in 'The Prestige Location' in our 'Prestige House'.

Now that we have our 'Attractive Spouse' living with us in our 'Prestige House' in that 'Prestige Location' we are 'Expected To' have the 'Culturally Correct' number of 'Line Continuance' children that our 'Prestige Car' can take to the 'Prestige Scholastic Institution'.

Now where in that tale of upward-mobility is an indication of what YOU want?

What do children bring? We could live in a one or two bedroom home instead a 3,4, or 5-bedroom home. We could have a smaller two-seat sports car instead of an SUV. Each child costs about half a million dollars to go from birth to about 18 years of age. Two children: a million dollars. What could we have done with an extra million dollars?

We'd be much better off with a smaller house without a neck-breaking mortgage and the mental stress in trying to pay that neck-breaking mortgage, and have more personal enjoyment out of life.

I was about 40 years old, in the 'Prestige House' and driving the 'Prestige Car' and working in the 'Prestige Job' at the local Hospital while sending my "Culturally Correct Two" kids to the local expensive 'Prestige School", while tearing my hair out trying to make ends meet to cover the mortgage on the 'Prestige House', and trying to pay off all the debts racked up by my uncaring spendthrift first wife who was trying to continually 'keep up with the Joneses'. And I was trying in panic to work out how I could find an extra 15 grand a year to pay for sending our second child to that 'Prestige School".

That's when I realised that all those things that I had thought were necessary to my position in Society were just out and out bullshit. That we are brainwashed into what 'Society Expects' us to do. We DO NOT need a "Prestige Car", a "Prestige House" in the "Prestige Location", and we DO NOT need to have ANY children AT ALL.

BUT WE HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHED BY SOCIETY INTO BELIEVING THAT WE HAVE TO HAVE ALL THESE THINGS OR WE HAVE FAILED SOCIETY'S EXPECTATIONS OF US. And we can't have that now, can we?

(I asked a local dentist why he didn't have the "Prestige House" up on 'Pill and Drill Hill' with the rest of us suckers. He replied that a simple 3-bedroomed house was easy to sell whenever he felt like moving elsewhere, and without the neck-breaking mortgage he was able to fly off overseas for a month's Skiing Holiday whenever he felt like it. That was when the penny dropped for me.)

Wow, I have to say that this validates a lot of my life decisions so far. Never wanted kids, bought a modest house, drive a beater car because it gets me where I need to go (with air conditioning because I’m not a sadist). I just always sort of naturally despised the status games of society and didn’t feel like I had to participate. The goal is to be able to retire at 49. Not that I necessarily will, but that at that point I can say “fuck you” to anyone if I want and keep doing my own thing. I feel fortunate to currently work for an employer who I don’t want to say that to anyway.

I think there’s a common belief on either “side” of the child/childless divide that the other one must be secretly unhappy with their choice, but I’ve tended to believe that most people end up where they prefer, so it’s interesting to hear a perspective that’s a bit different. I think children are cute and all that, but as you said, a $1 million expense sure blows a hole in my budget.

I also have some philosophical issues with the whole thing very much like the OP stated. Also, I feel pretty bad about the state of the world being left to children born today, primarily around climate change, but not limited to that.

Given all those factors I’m surprised that fertility rates are as high as they are, but perhaps it is no surprise that they are falling almost worldwide.