Posted on 03/06/2006 7:12:09 AM PST by FreedomSurge
Economically, every society needs children.
Children are the producers of the future This means that children are in a sense a necessary economic good. A society that does not produce enough children, or that cannot produce enough children who grow into economically productive adults, is doomed to poverty.
Every long-term investment we make, whether in the private or public sector, is predicated on the idea that there will be a future generation which will actually produce a return. It doesn't matter what economic or political system rules the present, it will need children to secure its future. Even the most self-centered individual would eventual realize that if the next generation cannot produce, his own welfare will suffer.
So, collectively we all need children and benefit when they grow into productive adults, but the cost of raising children is increasingly being borne by fewer and fewer in the general population.
Childless adults are rapidly becoming economic free riders on the backs of parents.
In the pre-industrial era, children almost always contributed to the economic success of the family directly. Agriculture depended heavily on the labor of children, and children brought further benefits by extending support networks via marriages. In the industrial era, however, children began to contribute less and less while consuming more and more. Nowadays, children usually return very little if any economic benefit to the parents.
Being a parent costs one economically. Although we socialize some cost, such as education, parents pay most of the cost of raising a child. Parents also lose out in non-monetary ways such as in a loss of flexibility in when and where they work. If an individual sets out to maximize his lifetime income, avoiding having children would be step one.
In our atomized society, children do not provide a boost in status, networking or security that offsets their very real cost. I think this economic loss may explain why many people shy away from having children. Many people simply do not want the loss of status that will come from having their disposable income consumed by rug rats.
Like all free-rider situations, this one will eventually cause a collapse that hurts everyone. As the percentage of parents in the population shrinks, the cost of being a parent will rise. More and more people will be tempted to conserve their own resources and let someone else shoulder the burden of creating the next generation. Eventually, the society will either produce too few children or, probably more likely, will not produce enough children with the skills and habits needed to carry on the economy
There is already grousing in some blue zones by the childless that they shouldn't have to subsidize the "breeders'" children. How long before child-hostile places like San Francisco become the norm?
I'm not sure how to address this problem from a public-policy perspective, but the next time you run into someone bragging because he chose not to have children, call him a parasite and see how it works out.
I'm with you, JRBC. It's too complex an issue for these sort of blanket statements.
Besides, many unmarried welfare mothers vote Democrat. Did these FReepers intend that the welfare moms, who've "gone forth and been fruitful", get to vote and intelligent women like ourselves do not?
*zips lip and moves away to fume about this one, more quietly*
Oh, you don't have to tell me that.
It just seems you were being a tad judgmental, considering you really don't know why someone is childless.
It's not always by choice.
And even if it is, that's between the person and God and really not for others to judge.
Unless you're perfect, of course. And I've never met any human yet who is.
Exactly!
It's cruel enough to lose your fertility to illness...or to find that you have to choose caring for someone else instead of a child or well, the twists and turns that life takes. But to have others act like you're some kind of monster because you don't have kids just pours salt on a never healing wound.
Many childless folks would have loved to have had children and would have made good parents. But we also believe that kids need a stable home, two parents etc. So we try to get one and two ironed out first, after fertility of course.
Again, I've had a good life. I'm a great Aunt, an improving 'zookeeper' and on my way to becoming a relatively decent human being. I wish the same for everyone else :)
And I suppose conservatives are defensive and uncertain of their ideology since they need to read and post at conservative sites? Have THEIR beliefs reaffirmed by the hundreds of thousands of likeminded posters and lurkers of which FR boasts?
People are sick of being demonized if they don't have children, and now we are finally striking back and defending ourselves against people like you .
Now THAT sounds like a proposition.
I can't believe this is still going.
That Won't.
DIE.
;-)
Well, I suppose there are a few yankee fans here on FR, and also a few more Cowboys fans. But it takes an extra special level of dumb to be a fan of both. I'd expect that the only folks here qualified to get riled don't last long before the viking kitties chow down. And I don't post over on the DU... ;>)
PS: I do occasionally post on crevo threads, so it's not like I can't stand being singed (hehehe).
I've been enjoying these posts far more than anything else, today. Consider yourself cheered loudly from the Southern Hemisphere!
LOL - this thread kept me up past my bedtime last night. (I'm several hours ahead of the U.S. time zones.) But we sure had fun tweaking the you-need-to-have-kids-to-validate-yourself-fascists.
{giggle}
I made an attractive texan lady laugh enough to post it? Cool. You have made my day.
BUMP!
Keeping it alive.
"There are noble reasons to remain childless--devoting your life to God, or a military career, for example. These are selfless acts. It is only those who remain childless for the pursuit of material goods, the luxury life, political power, or laziness that I find fault with."
And those are the only two possible scenarios? There's nothing in between? I learn so much around here.
And I would much rather come under His judgment than under yours. Yours matters not a whit to me.
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