Hacker News Reader

Comment by tshaddox | Hacker News Reader

> Some might say this is selfish, but on the other hand it’s kind of weird to expect anybody to commit to that for the sake of some other party, whether that be society, the government, peers, or parents, particularly when none of them are doing anything of substance to help mitigate those impacts in exchange.

Nah, I think that it is just selfish, and that it’s the least weird thing in the world to expect people to commit to sacrificing some things for the sake of their children.

You must have been led to these conclusions by ideas (perhaps labeled “individualism” or similar). Like all ideas, someone had to invent them, and these particular ideas surely have not been widespread for even 100 years.

View on HN

I would agree if it weren’t almost everything that must be sacrificed in some capacity. Sacrifice of some things are unavoidable, but when no aspect of life remains untouched it’s too much.

It’s worth noting that such a degree of sacrifice wasn’t always associated with raising children. It used to be much more hands-off and less financially burdensome — responsibilities were split between grandparents, other relatives, and the town/neighborhood, and after the youngest years kids could (and were expected to) spend their time outside unsupervised doing kid things. This gave parents much needed breathing room that no longer exists, thanks to the ongoing stranger danger panic that was kicked off in the 90s, people needing to move around to have a shot at getting a decent job, systematic destruction of safe third places for kids and teens, and pressure to control and structure every moment of each child’s life.

So I don’t agree that it’s individualism, but rather a natural response to financial and societal forces pushing ever more of the burden onto the parents’ shoulders. We’ve created a world that is actively hostile to children and asking parents to just eat the resulting vastly increased costs.

Talking to my parents, and listening to recordings made with my grandparents and great-grandparents, this is silly. All of them worried about finances and the cost of kids. They survived the Depression, and that informed their view. And they always worried about their kids success and safety.

Worry is going to present, no matter what. Parents with hundreds of thousands in the bank worry, too. That can't be optimized for.

Smart people see when doing something will require swimming against the current for extended periods, however, and opt to not put themselves in that situation. The problem isn't that people can see this and act accordingly, but the direction of the current. The direction of the current is what needs to change.

Might be missing that the whole idea of parenting is a rather new and novel one. Modern parenting starts roughly when baby boomers started their own families.

kind of a "yes, and", but:

> such a degree of sacrifice wasn’t always associated with raising children

To a certain extent I agree with you that lower standards in parenting made the whole project more doable.

However, when my great-great-grandmother's brother's wife died, my great-great-grandmother had to quit school (about 14 or 15 years old?) in order to stay home to help take care of his baby. Shaped the whole rest of her life.

Responsibilities being split often meant others had to sacrifice in addition to parents, and those expectations of sacrifice often fell hard on women (whether young unmarried or past their own reproductive years).

I think there's a very important distinction to be made here. Having kids and taking care of kids you already have are too very different things.

If you're calling not having kids selfish, that's just completely weird. You are going to have to prove first that your opinion isn't also one of these invented ideas.

If we're talking about taking care of them, I kind of agree. Excluding extreme circumstances like rape in a country without abortion, you kind of know what you're willingly signing up for when you have kids. You forced them into the world, they are your responsibility.

> Like all ideas, someone had to invent them

Not at all. Behaviors can be emergent based on environmental conditions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

is one example.

I was referring to the parent commenter’s specific ideas and conclusions, not general behavior patterns.

"Selfish" is exactly the word my dad uses. But then again we're third worlders and the idea of not having grandchildren is literally horrifying.

> the idea of not having grandchildren is literally horrifying.

Why?

In our culture, we're socialized to minimize our "self." Your life is defined by the roles you play in the extended family at various stages of life: child, father, etc. You spend a life laboring to provide for your kids, and the reward at the end is raising your grandkids and sharing their joy as they experience everything in the world for the first time through fresh eyes. It completes the cycle of life. If you don't have grandkids, you're stripped of purpose and robbed of your reward.

I can understand at an intellectual level that other people are raised differently and probably have a different emotional reaction, and, at an intellectual level, I understand that viewpoint is valid. But I genuinely cannot put myself in that mindset. The idea that you could live a fulfilling life without grandkids is predicated on being something I don't know how to be.

For whatever it's worth, it's my perception that even within the US there are many who come from a culture where it's expected for adults to settle down and raise a family at some point in their lives. That describes my background, and I would like to have kids myself.

I believe for many, the desire is there, but it's not so strong as to overcome the forces against it. It's a major life decision and can make the difference between relative financial stability and a decent retirement or struggling their whole lives and standing in a grocery store all day bagging groceries to keep a roof over their head in their 70s.

Keep living in your bubble my friend. It is not selfish to see the sacrifices required to raise children (and I will not enumerate them here, this thread is full of them if you want to educate yourself), see that all you get from society is "thoughts and prayers" (at least in WA state where I live) and take a hard pass on having children.

I... What?

This is literally the definition of selfish? You see what you must give up for the sake of someone else (children), see the lack of support you will receive, and decide that you don't want to make that exchange.

That's literally a selfish decision, because you are deciding you want to keep that energy and those resources for yourself.

It's not inherently bad to make that decision, but it absolutely is selfish.

But that "someone else" doesn't exist yet...it seems nonsensical to gauge whether you're keeping resources from a non-entity.

I don't think it matters? A decision to keep resources for yourself is selfish on the basis of it being a decision to keep resources for yourself, regardless of where they might otherwise be going?

I guess, but that kinda makes the word selfish meaningless. By that logic we’re all selfish all the time since we’re keeping our resources instead of throwing them in the garbage.

I mean, only if/when we're consciously choosing not to do so?

I think it's the affirmative action, the choice, that makes the difference

So I guess everyone who reads this chain is now selfish :)

You're saying it's de facto selfish to not have kids? What if someone can't have kids?

In reality everyone who's thinking about having kids exists on a spectrum of what's possible: either it's going to be really easy for you (because you're Elon Musk and you don't give a fuck) or it's going to be borderline impossible (because you're infertile, or you're broke, or whatever).

Just because someone looked at the odds and said "you know what, maybe this isn't a great idea" doesn't make them selfish. Meanwhile you're the one imposing your worldview on them...

Productive conversation is infeasible with someone who interprets my position to be that it’s selfish to be unable to have children.

Not to put words in their mouth, but I think part of the poster's point is that inability is is a more complex equation than simple biological capacity. A couple who judges it economically risky or otherwise irresponsible to start a family (which represents a wide swath of the population) could for example consider themselves unable.

No, this is a pretty typical conversation on the Internet these days: someone takes a relatively well-defined stance on an issue, and then someone else wildly misinterprets or misrepresents it, just to get in a dig at the original person for... Unclear reasons.

It's either terrible reading comprehension, an inability to understand nuance, or just plain trolling. None of these lead to productive conversations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com