Dear linda_22003,
"We pay a lot for other people's future, including about $4000 a year out of our property taxes for public schools we don't use and never will."
Well, although your use is indirect, you do receive significant value to live in a society where most folks have basic literacy and can work in a high-tech, high-productivity society. Your standard of living would be directly decreased if most folks were illiterate. Thus, at least part of what you pay gives present value.
"We have our own savings and investments, and don't have Social Security as part of our retirement planning. In fact, we CAN plan for retirement because of all the money we saved on tuitions, summer camps, music lessons, and other child-related expenditures."
Yet, the value of your investments, on which you will depend in your golden years, would decline if the next generation didn't go to work in the businesses in which you directly and indirectly have investments. Thus, folks who have children are contributing future workers to the society, without which, national wealth would decline precipitously.
sitetest
I don't think those things add up to selfishness or taking from the future; naturally, though, I am distraught that you, a complete stranger, do not approve of the decisions my husband and I make together. We should have taken your opinions into consideration, of course. ;)
Putting aside the dubious claim that what goes on in the government school system bears any relationship to "a society where most folks have basic literacy and can work in a high-tech, high-productivity society", this argument from externality simply doesn't make sense. If it did, then I would be justified in demanding that everyone who ever looks at my house must help pay to paint it.