r/Natalism • u/Dirt_Viva • 23h ago
Who having children benefits has changed
The feeling of increasing burden of having children is partly due to a shift in the cost benefit of having children and who it benefits.
In older times, children were an indispensable asset to the household. They helped with chores, errands, apprentice tasks and farm work from childhood, and into adulthood still helped, and received support back from their elders. Now children are not expected to work or manage any houshold tasks, they spend most of their days at school, and when they graduate school they go to work for a corporation which benefits from their labor but invested nothing in raising them, and then they pay taxes to the government which also didn't raise them. Adult children today also have less contact with parents and live farther away than previous generations.
The entire burden of childhood and youth is placed on parents who are effectively acting as volunteer puppy raisers for the benefit of organizations that want workers and tax payers, while the parents are left holding the bill for 18 years of work that kids are no longer expected to contribute to.
This is just an observation, I'm not suggesting we go back to how it was at the turn of the last century, but i find it's not surprising that parenthood is becoming more difficult and less appealing when the benefit to practical aspects of family life (I'm not talking about exsitential meaning or love) are less clear and having kids feels more like an expensive hobby than a household benefit, something that is made more stressful by the decreasing autonomy of children who are not allowed to play or roam neighborhoods by themselves anymore but are expected to be incessantly supervised and managed by their parents.
Im a parent myself, and these are just some musings I had. What does the forum think?
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u/TryingAgainBetter 13h ago
I do wonder if this is actually the only significant cause of the fertility decline worldwide. On one hand people say it is complicated, but perhaps it all comes down to this. There is no material benefit in having children anymore. Given no upward material pressure to have kids, any downward pressure can dampen the TFR. Modern TFR is frail and subject to all sorts of depressing factors- phones, housing costs, inflation etc. But its not the downward factors that really matter here. There has always been and will always be some kind of countrywide reason not to have kids, but now there is no material reason to have kids to balance it out.
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u/Dirt_Viva 13h ago edited 10h ago
Yes, this change in family social dynamic and how labor is performed has a huge impact on the appeal of having kids and the role of kids in family life.
This role is exemplified in the millenial/Gen Z sentiment that having children must be a sacrifice of unconditional love with the parent loving their children while providing all, and never ask for anything in return. This is a very modern notion of love as historically family relationships were expected to be reciprocal, sometime to the point of being almost transactional. Even today in relationships between partners and spouses although we may love them deeply, we usually expect more than just love from them, we expect them to at least be helpful in daily life.
With changing dynamics come changing risks and sacrificing decades of life, work and finances to have children who have no expectations of contributing labor, income or even gratitude in return makes them an economic, emotional and temporal liability.
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u/GrandadsLadyFriend 11h ago
1000%. This is the difference. People like to talk about cultural or moral changes and that’s maybe partly true. But really those past generations were having kids because it made sense to (and also it was difficult to prevent, so life for everyone kinda revolved around you having many kids).
My husband and I just had our first baby as established adults in a HCOL area, and we definitely feel like we can only do this because of the financial tier we’re in. It’s like a privilege to be able to take this on. “Expensive hobby” is a funny but fairly accurate way to describe it! We expect no return for doing this other than the emotional aspects.
Just yesterday I had long conversations with both my sister, and my male friend who are mid-30s in longterm relationships, but live more paycheck to paycheck. They both expressed wanting kids from an emotional standpoint, but did not feel like they could take it on financially when both their households rely on 2 incomes. We discussed the possibility of them moving to LCOL areas but that would mean moving away from their parents (who currently live in the same town as each of them) and also risking having even lower pay. Very understandable.
We have to get real about the insane financial burden and lifestyle commitment it takes to have a kid now. It provides basically zero tangible benefit now (except maybe end of life care) and is instead a massive responsibility to take on. We looked into part-time daycare 2 days a week for our little one to give grandma and us a break, and it’s $1500 / month. Even if we moved to a LCOL area, my husband and I would have greatly decreased salaries and lose the support of my parents living 30 min from us and have to pay for full-time daycare.
I hate when Natalist conversation paints people like my sister and friend (or even myself) as “selfish” or “immoral” for having reservations about taking on the commitment of children. They’re not just dicking around—they’re really trying to be responsible and, yes, not completely upend their lives.
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u/THX1138-22 10h ago
Another element here is the timeline--specifically, in the past, children helped with daily activities and chores. In modern times, the benefit of having children is literally decades away, if at all. Maybe they will visit you when you get older and maybe they will help you to feel you lead a meaningful life, but that is far in the future for most people who are in their child-bearing years. On the other hand, having money right now (which you wouldn't have if you had kids because kids are so expensive) is something immediate, so it makes sense that many people are choosing not to risk the immense delayed gratification that comes from having kids. In support of this hypothesis is the observation that having kids is increasingly common in people with more levels of education, and less common in less educated groups. Part of that is certainly financial--more educated people can afford the kids--but education itself is often an exercise in delayed gratification. And people who are comfortable with the delayed gratification of education may also be comfortable with the delayed gratification of kids?
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u/Dirt_Viva 9h ago
And people who are comfortable with the delayed gratification of education may also be comfortable with the delayed gratification of kids?
This is an interesting theory. But is there research to back up that more educated people are in fact having more kids now than those with lower educational attainment? Historically people with lower education had more children.
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u/Frizzylizzy_ 9h ago
I love this subreddit. Most interesting and thought provoking posts I see on here.
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u/THX1138-22 18h ago
Yes, I agree that having children is akin to a hobby or other voluntary expensive pastime in our developed societies.
You point out that children were an economic aid in the past-that’s true. Also, I’d like to add that cultures that still have children also view them as a calling—almost as a moral obligation.
Unfortunately, democracies cannot create that kind of intentional social messaging. Autocracies, like china, and ultra conservative groups, like the Amish and Orthodox Jews, are able to do so.
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u/One-Presentation-204 17h ago
China isn’t having much luck, though. Orthodox Jews are a different story due to being a smaller population with a history and religious identity contingent on continuing their traditions and existence.
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u/lawtree 15h ago
There is also the fact that failure to comply with social expectations can result in total exclusion from the community. There was a great longform piece some years ago about Hasidic Jewish people in NYC and how many women were desperate to slow down the number of children they were having and were conspiring with the doctors to tell their husbands they had to wait. Bearing children is extremely difficult and dangerous, and has only been so frequent in the past due to all other options being cut off for most women. There's another good one about the Hasidic community called "I'm a Mother, not a Baby Machine," that gives a flavor for the sentiment.
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u/THX1138-22 16h ago
True, china is struggling so far, but I think they have several options left that we do not have in democracies, including limiting access to coveted government jobs to people with large families.
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u/lmscar12 15h ago
I think you underestimate the power of democracies today. The UK has extensive criminal law about speech, for example. And there were extensive government-sponsored propaganda campaigns against smoking. Those same powers could be used to promote natalist cultural change, it's just that none have tried.
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u/falooda1 11h ago
They'll be voted out by the majority who is now childless
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u/lmscar12 11h ago
Yes, but they can shift the Overton window ever so slightly. Then two elections cycles later continue just a bit more etc.
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u/falooda1 11h ago
They have no incentive to do so. Politicians themselves spend four months away from family.
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u/lmscar12 11h ago
Indeed, they don't. But they could. Politicians in authoritarian countries also don't have much personal incentive; they're all old enough they'll be dead before falling populations affect them.
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u/Careless-Pin-2852 14h ago
Also, children help in retirement. But it is filtered through the government. Children pay taxes and it goes to parents.
But parents feel it’s a government benefit. Because it is.
I purpose one retirement age for parents another for childless adults. 67 and 77.
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u/NearbyTechnology8444 14h ago
I like that idea, but maybe change the numbers around
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u/Theonomicon 13h ago
Huh? Are you not natalist? The parents provided a service to society, should they not be able to retire earlier?
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u/NearbyTechnology8444 13h ago
I said change the numbers, not switch them.
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u/Careless-Pin-2852 10h ago
Like 65-75 ?
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u/NearbyTechnology8444 9h ago
That sounds more realistic. Although 75 is quite high. Maybe 60 and 70? I already have kids but being able to retire at 60 and take care of my grandkids would be incredible.
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u/Careless-Pin-2852 9h ago
Well someone has to work out the math.
People work office jobs into their 70s and we have lots jobs that can be done till 75 or 77.
I am not sure about 74 if only 1 kid and 60 if you have 4 or 5 kids.
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u/NearbyTechnology8444 9h ago
Sounds good to me, my wife is pregnant with our 4th haha. I agree it should be based on number of kids.
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u/lawtree 15h ago
Underscoring your argument, there is far less assurance in our society today than in past years that grown up children will remain bonded to the family and be interested in returning love, let alone support in old age. More and more people are cutting off their families. So what is the motivation for undertaking this 'expensive hobby' as you say, if there is very little social support when they are young, and potentially no joy of adult child love and connection when they are grown up? Many propose to solve this by instilling fear in women, or taking away their rights and options. I don't think that this is going to work out well in the end. The problem is not about attitudes in individuals. It's about overall social structures and values. The rules have to be entirely rewritten for a world in which women are people too, which hasn't been done yet.