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.
'Many, if not most parents feel that way, until they have children of their own. Parents have a natural affinity for their children. As a parent, I can attest to this. I wouldn't have understood it as well if I hadn't experienced it.'"
Brilliant analysis. I personally don't have kids. I never thought I would have kids. Then my brother and his wife had their daughter who is two years old now. Even though it is my brother's child, I am amazed at how much I care for this precious little creature and how it has changed my opinion of what is a good society.
Part of the impetus for posting the controversial opinion (reply 1)is due to this little miracle.
Have you looked at your own postings?
Meow
Good. Then I'll stop funding public schools.
As a parent of four children I would be delighted if everyone would stop funding the government school monopoly. Funding it doesnt help my children or their future.
There are plenty of newborns to adopt and they certainly dont cost that much.
Not necessarily. Those who make that claim would seem to be operating on some type of doomsday scenario. Perhaps that argument was valid back in the day, when the survival of the species depended on everybody cranking out as many juniors as possible, but it is not obvious to me that such measures are required at this point in time. I have seen here no breakdown of costs, no analysis in any depth, nothing other than some hysteria about the baby boomers. Furthermore, any analysis would have to be made in context: namely, the realistic expectation from today's generation. Sure, one can go raise kids in some sort of commune to the end of generating a captive audience, but what purpose does this serve other than feeding one's ego and possibly ending up on the evening news. Twisted.
From glancing over the posts, I perceive that there is an element making the claim that it is ultimately one's socio-moral obligation to procreate. Well, there seem to have been quite a few socio-moral obligations out there, from indulgences to subjecting oneself to having one's heart ripped out. The beauty of America is, the extent of one's socio-moral obligation is contextually up to interpretation and not the decision of a self-chosen arrogant few.
"He who plants pears, plants for his heirs"--Tasha Tudor.
Woof woof.
But it may become more obvious when the ratio of old people on social security to younger workers goes from 8 to 1 today to 2 to 1 in 20 years.
As many posters have observed above, folks need to look out for themselves. Even if I had kids, I wouldn't count on squat from them in my later years. This ties back to the point I was trying to make about taking today's generation in context. One can bemoan it or one can accept reality. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there; better get yer 401k in order.
"The childless shouldn't be allowed to vote. They have little interest in the future of the nation."
That is one of the stupidest things that I have read in a long time.
First off, "childfree" is the word you are looking for. Someone who is childfree is someone who does not have children and never wants to. Childless is someone who wants children, but does not have them.
Just because a person is childfree doesn't mean they are not interested in the future. Plenty of childfree AND childless people are interested in the future.
You really need to get an understanding about what the United States is all about. People should not get the right to vote just because their reproductive organs work. Why should parents be the only ones who get to vote and decide who is going to be in the Senate, House of Representatives, governor, president, etc.?
I'm not defedning this country so that only a select group of people can have rights (especially when you want to deny ME my rights because I don't have children at the moment). If that's the way it's going to be (and thankfully those who make such decisions aren't as ignorant as you are), then I will hang my uniform up and move out of this country.
I contribute to the future, as does the childfree and childless. We do so just as much as those who have children. I pay taxes (except when deployed) and I exercise my right to vote, and I will until the day I die.
It's going to have to get in line behind a LOT of other stuff. ;)
Welcome to FR. Read the rest of the thread, some of these folks are nuts.
IT
JUST
WILL
NOT
DIE.
"government school monopoly" - I like that. I'm gonna use that in econ class. Thank you!
If you have kids, and you don't pay 100% of the costs of raising them (i.e. if you accept subsidies from other people's taxes to pay for schools, etc), you are the free rider.
Nonsense. Whatever little may be left in the Ponzi Scam at that point is simply recovering (part of) the money picked from people's pockets in the first place.
Why oh why did this thread just move to the top AGAIN?
The rich pay more in property and income taxes than you do. Yet you use the same amount of government services and infrastructure as they do.
YOU ARE A PARASITE ON THE SYTEM!
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