Convince me that I should have children.

How to pass, fit in, eventually set an example, and ultimately lead the way.
jacob
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by jacob »

@Ego - This is a pro-thread. We can make another for con. Mixing them together though ...

RootofGood
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by RootofGood »

I guess it depends on the disease or defect or disability that besets the kids of Couple B in your example. I imagine even those born with significant defects (spina bifida, Down Syndrome, cystic fibrosis, etc) would prefer to exist with their defect than to not exist at all.

For the non-existent kid that never exists, we're just postulating since they would never experience anything anyway (like the nearly infinite potential kids that aren't conceived every year).

In practice, I think it makes more sense for couples with a high likelihood of genetically abnormal offspring to adopt or screen early in a pregnancy. We were faced with some scary genetic news during the gestation of kid #3.

Due to Mrs. RoG being in her mid-30's and hence at a higher risk of genetic abnormalities for the fetus, we opted for a non-invasive ultrasound to test for potential genetic abnormalities. After getting the bad news that there's a 1 in 20 risk of abnormality, we opted for amniocentesis and genetic testing and it ruled out chromosomal abnormalities. We didn't face the actual choice of "we know there's a genetic defect, do we carry to full term?". Tough choice to contemplate. The kid turned out great so far!

Ego wrote:
RootofGood wrote:From virtually any kid's perspective (if they were to be overly contemplative), they would prefer to exist and be a child of a frugal parent than not exist at all.
What about from the perspective of the kid that does not yet exist?
Consider two couples, the A’s and the B’s. The A’s are young, healthy, and rich. If they had children, they could give them the best of everything—schools, clothes, electronic gaming devices. Even so, we would not say that the A’s have a moral obligation to reproduce.

The B’s are just as young and rich. But both have a genetic disease, and, were they to have a child together, that child would suffer terribly. We would say, using Benatar’s logic, that the B’s have an ethical obligation not to procreate.

The case of the A’s and the B’s shows that we regard pleasure and pain differently. Pleasure missed out on by the nonexistent doesn’t count as a harm. Yet suffering avoided counts as a good, even when the recipient is a nonexistent one.

And what holds for the A’s and the B’s is basically true for everyone. Even the best of all possible lives consists of a mixture of pleasure and pain. Had the pleasure been forgone—that is, had the life never been created—no one would have been the worse for it. But the world is worse off because of the suffering brought needlessly into it.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/b ... ntPage=all

ohcanada
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by ohcanada »

ERE applies to kids too!!!! Look up crunchy moms... Reusable diapers, breast milk, and hand-me-downs are free.

Also homebirth works great and costs a tiny fraction of hospital bills, with far less doctor-forced unnecessary complications like induction, which causes a need for pain medicine, which often leads to unnecessary c-sections.

DutchGirl
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by DutchGirl »

In the Netherlands a third of the homebirths end at the hospital because of complications. Luckily most mums and children come out ok in the end.

@C40: I'm a girl and I don't want to have kids. I'm betting there's more of us around. Just hang in there. I don't think you would or should want to build a life together with someone who is totally incompatible to you ,even if that means youll have to search for someone more compatible for a little while longer.

ohcanada
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by ohcanada »

@dutchgirl - your statistic is confused. 1/3 of Dutch have homebirths http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2352715/ and it has been proven very safe.

workathome
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by workathome »

Holland is commonly cited in the "Homebirth community" of a shining example of why the practice is superior to the US system.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-22888411

I think it makes for an ERE-strategy in the sense of "do it yourself." Breastfeeding also has great benefits for the woman, and has been shown to reduce the chances of having breast cancer.

Also, I'd recommend taking a gander at the ingredients in formula: they're disgusting! The main ingredients are usually soy and chemical by-products like high fructose corn syrup. It's total junk with huge, off-the-charts marketing budgets behind it. What's real sickening is the healthy community is in on the scam. My wife's first meeting at the women's health clinic after getting pregnant was just to ask her for her personal information, and give her a "welcome" bag full of free formula samples. We then got bombarded with nonstop free bottles, samples, etc. in the mail up to and after our son's birth.

stand@desk
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by stand@desk »

If I had to make a convincing argument for someone to have children, it would be that the moments before you die, wouldn't it be nice to know you have some of your DNA out in the world that is alive and interacting in the world..

If you have children, you have them to carry on in the world. Your kids can never change the fact that you were the one that created them. That would be a meaningful feeling at death, that you have created a legacy that will interact in the world..I guess it's really continuing not creating a DNA legacy but when it comes down to it, pro-creating is our sole purpose for living.

Entities are born, and die, but the ones that procreate have a piece of them still in the game, the ones that didn't end their participation in the game. Why not stay in the game? The game is all we have as we know it.

DutchGirl
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by DutchGirl »

In the Netherlands 49% of the women who deliver a baby for the first time and try home delivery are ultimately sent in to deliver at the hospital. For women who have had a baby before and are now wanting to deliver at home, this percentage is 17%. Source: http://medischcontact.artsennet.nl/arch ... enhuis.htm (Article from 2009).

Since women here on average give birth something like 2-3 times, I would say my 1/3rd of home deliveries ending in the hospital isn't too far off.

I'm not sure why this discussion started, and let's end it, because this discussion was actually about something else. I just wanted to show I know what I'm talking about and can back it up with sources. :D

Spartan_Warrior
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

Because it's the family name that lives on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDrRQN0tR9w

ohcanada
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by ohcanada »

I can't read Dutch, but a 2013 study put the risk at 1 in 1000 of having severe complications during homebirth (on par with issues at hospitals). I think this makes good sense - to seek emergency medical intervention when needed! I am just trying to show the medical intervention is generly unneeded - and more than that, going to a hospital increases the % of unnecessary intervention. Doctors on staff are looking for problems, often that aren't there (especially in the US!) so they can use their "hammer."

Imagine every time you grilled you did it at the fire station with staff full geared up and ready to open the hose every time they thought there was a sign it might spread to the grass. http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f3263

It is relevant in a misunderstanding that having children isn't easily integrated into a frugal lifestyle, but children fit very nicely into a natural, environmentally conscious, do-it-yourself mentality. It is what we were "made to do"... Women's entire biological makeup is primarily designed/evolved for giving-birth, and tends to do it very we'll without unnecessary and expensive technology applied to it! Hospital intervention is good for emergencies, but not good when applied to natural processes that are best left alone. (Think walking somewhere with no deadline or schedule vs taking a fighter jet - doctors are ready to throw you in the jet if they think you're walking too slow and might not get there before their shift ends - plus they get a cash bonus if you take the jet!)

saving-10-years
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by saving-10-years »

This does really need to be a new thread (costs & risks of pregnancy?). I assume that the difference between the reading of statistics by DutchGirl and OhCanada is that the rate of complications when you are 'low risk' is ... low. The BMJ article is about low risk and points out how these are determined:
In the Netherlands, midwives in primary care provide care to low risk women. These are women with a singleton pregnancy of a fetus in cephalic presentation who do not have any medical or obstetric risk factors that are an indication for secondary care, such as previous caesarean section, and who start labour spontaneously between 37 and 42 weeks.
One problem with pregnancy is that you cannot predict with any degree of certainty that you will have single child, that it won't take up a poor position (e.g. breech), that you won't have pre eclampsia or any of the other complaints that put you into high risk, and that you won't under-run or start early. I know in the UK being an older mother would tend to put you into high risk and also being located a long distance from a hospital 'in case' you needed one. Presumably the Netherlands, being very compact next to the US, Canada or even the UK would be unlikely to present that risk.

@OhCanada, I agree that medical care can be thrust upon mothers as the obvious option when its quite unnecessary and often about the convenience of the carers rather than the parents. However it is very difficult when you are told that you are at risk, or that you 'might' be at higher risk if you refuse help. You can plan for, budget and hope for a home birth but this may not be something that you are able to execute. Part of that whole unpredictable excitement of parenthood. :-)

7Wannabe5
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

The most stoic-frugal (mostly I shoot for clever-frugal with mixed success) thing I ever did involved childbirth. The insurance I had when I became pregnant with my D22 would give me 100% coverage for childbirth if I used an inexpensive practitioner group and I left the hospital within 24 hours. The only two choices I had for inexpensive practitioner groups were an inexperienced intern group I didn't trust and the no-painkillers-offered nurse-midwife group I had used for the birth of my S25 which lasted 36 hours and was extremely painful (for those who have not experienced, imagine having a billiard ball very slowly pushed through the meat of your over-developed flexed bicep muscle but 10x worse.) So, I signed up for 10 more hours of that in order to save the 20% co-pay. Of course, I regretted it by a couple hours in and requested relief but was told "No. You are doing great!!!" IOW, nurse-midwife = personal trainer from hell.

Anyways, back to initial topic, I think the main reason why having/raising children is expensive is that you don't do it enough times to figure out how to do it cheaply. Therefore, it is only in retrospect that I can offer advice such as "Don't send them to school or, at least, do not make any decisions based on sending them to school." Very few things will avalanche a whole truck load of middle class expenses on you more than concerning yourself with a "good school district." Prior to the entry point into our consumerist society which is kindergarten, the expenses for raising children, if one or another or both parents or extended family/friends can be with child are very, very minimal. Maybe $1 a day for food, half a dozen pairs of rubber pants/year, one emergency visit for ear infection/year, $100 at the thrift store for supplies such as stroller-that-will-collapse-so-you-can-go-on-city-bus-with-baby-and-toddler (if you don't get everything you need from affluent relatives.) We lived in a maybe 600 square ft apartment with no car and no TV when my kids were little. I made maybe a few thousand a year doing this or that part-time and my first husband maybe made $16,000 a year working as a clerk at a bookstore and we actually managed to save quite a bit of money during that period. Our subsequent purchase of the cheapest house per square ft. in a decent school district within commuting distance (huge mistake) put an end to that-lol.

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C40
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by C40 »

I was watching a Season of TED Talks called "Sex, Secrets & Love", and this episode was on:

Rufus Griscom & Alisa Volkman: Let's Talk Parenting Taboos. The publishers of Babble.com expose four facts that parents never, ever admit - and why they should.

I'm not sure whether these two might now regret having children, or if since they are talking about these taboo subjects they just seem so different from common portrayal of having children from parents.

You folks may know I like charts, and I found these charts from their presentation interesting:

Of course, this chart appears to be an average, and not applicable to individuals:
Image

I wonder if there is control data from those studies of people who do not have any children - what happens for them?

This was their own personal rendition of the chart - I don't know whether they are confirming the happiness line or if they only added in the yellow line to illustrate their point:
Image

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jennypenny
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by jennypenny »

I wonder if there is control data from those studies of people who do not have any children - what happens for them?
That's what I wondered. Some of the unhappier times seem to correspond to the normal time for a mid-life crisis. It also seems to correspond to when people have the biggest and smallest financial burdens.

And I wonder if empty nesters are happiest because they fulfilled a goal of theirs to successfully raise children, and not because the children have moved out.

Raising infants and toddlers is definitely hard, though. I also suspect that many people have kids for the wrong reason and realizing that contributes to the early dissatisfaction.

henrik
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by henrik »

jennypenny wrote:That's what I wondered. Some of the unhappier times seem to correspond to the normal time for a mid-life crisis. It also seems to correspond to when people have the biggest and smallest financial burdens.
The answer, it turns out, is no: control for cash, employment status and children, and the U-bend is still there. So the growing happiness that follows middle-aged misery must be the result not of external circumstances but of internal changes.
http://www.economist.com/node/17722567

7Wannabe5
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Right. It's hormonal. People are most miserable/crazy when their reproductive organs are cranking up during puberty and when they are starting to shut down at midlife.

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GandK
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by GandK »

Agreed. The study found that people are most stressed out and angriest in adolescence and their 20s (when testosterone peaks), and generally unhappiest in their 40s and early 50s (during menopause and its male equivalent).

As a 40-year-old I took away that I should do my best every day to create some amazing circumstances, because absent some joy-producing external factors, this is likely to be my life's most miserable decade. :-)

CactusSurfer
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by CactusSurfer »

I have to wonder how much historic factors, rather than biology, have to do with the age variation of happiness you see in these studies. Today's elderly, at least in the US, came of age in a time of unprecedented prosperity and enormous opportunity. By contrast, today's middle-aged generation generally had fewer opportunities and more setbacks than their elders, which would explain why people who are in their 60s through 80s today are happier than those in their 30s through 50s. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if thirty years from now researchers "discovered" that old people were in fact generally miserable.
Last edited by CactusSurfer on Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

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C40
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by C40 »

Maybe the mid life dip also has to do with something unrelated to children: at that point, most have spent almost 20 years in school, and then 20 years working. They're looking at another 20 years of working. They feel their bodies/health declining. The consumption treadmill is not paying off all their hard work. They and realizing that there isn't much to look forward to after their remaining 20 years more work.

Dragline
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Re: Convince me that I should have children.

Post by Dragline »

Yes, there are studies that show that average life happiness reaches a nadir at about 40 and improves from there. I'm not aware of anyone who has ever bothered to distinguish those will children and those without, which is what you would have to do.

On the other hand, grandchildren almost always give a happiness boost, except perhaps where you are raising them as your own.

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