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The whole "I can't afford a baby" debate in this episode reminded me of an article published in Elle published 10+ years ago (I think it ran in a hard copy of the magazine around 2008-09). https://bit.ly/3YL4Oei

It's a personal essay about a woman who wanted a second child and when her second pregnancy revealed she was having twins. She and her husband chose to have a selective reduction. I remember the story not sitting well with me — and this isn't necessarily a general indictment on abortion — but she wrote about how the driving factor was financial:

"My husband was convinced that twins would radically change our lives for the worse. We'd have to leave our beloved neighborhood for a place with cheaper rents and better public schools—there was no way we could afford private education for three kids. We'd kiss goodbye any hope of career advancement, at least for the foreseeable future. To his list, I added the loss of my income, necessary to meet our expenses. I couldn't see how I'd be able to resume working after the birth since we could never afford full-time help, and—no matter how well they napped—two infants wouldn't leave much time for anything else."

It just seemed so cruel to me to say, "We can't afford kids because we can't afford private schools, etc., etc." (Especially when I know families with even more children, fewer resources, and have *still* had kids that went to Ivy League schools — it all just felt so pretentious to me.)

I think to some extent, when people say they "can't afford children" it's because of misplaced priorities. I think the solution includes two things:

1) For some of these people to just admit they don't want kids. If you like something more than the prospect of having a family, it's okay. But don't put the burden of "not being able to afford" something on a kid who had no choice in whether they joined your family.

2) For society to reprioritize how we value its members. Personally, I think it's okay if there's a wage gap (so long as it's caused by a motherhood penalty.) We just need to stop seeing people's value as being determined by how much money we give them for their job. Raising children is valuable work. So is managing a law firm.

"Women's work" is valuable work, even though we don't value it as much as we could (and we certainly don't value it with money.) We also don't value and respect children the way we should. We'll throw everything at them to placate them, but we don't actually see them as valuable investments in the future.

I think it just comes down to a cultural shift in how we view the world.

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Feb 10, 2023·edited Feb 10, 2023Author

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Feb 11, 2023Liked by Meghan Daum

Junior Mints truly are the best candy. Also, people really miss out if they don’t stay for the bonus content.

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Feb 13, 2023·edited Feb 13, 2023Liked by Sarah Haider

I agree with Sarah, I think that people have higher standards for living and that is impacting whether they think they can afford children. I have friends where only the husband works, he is a medical researcher on a grant. They live in Philadelphia, their kids go to public school, they rent a modest 3 bedroom house in the city. They go on road trips to Maine a few times a year. They have cell phones but are a bit hippie-ish and probably don't have cable or other luxuries. The mother stays home with the 3 kids. Their kids do not want for anything. But I think most educated urban parents want more luxuries than that. I would guess he makes around $50k-$60k. Shouldn't that be a nice life?

Edit: Actually they are both European so they don't have college loans. I imagine if they had $500/mo of student debt that would change things. In fact, I feel like student loans are a huge part of people feeling poor. And I agree with Sarah- I want my 2 kids to be entrepreneurs and not go to college, unless they want to do something technical like engineering, in which case they should go to whatever bumfuck university gives them a scholarship. My sister was very smart so she got a full ride to Marshall University in West Virginia.. they're so desperate for talent you can get a full ride if you have a decent GPA and some extracurriculars// at least in the early 2000s that's how it was.)

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Feb 11, 2023Liked by Sarah Haider

I’m totally with Meghan regarding home ownership as a woman. I graduated from nursing school in 2001 and bought a house 9 months later at the age of 23. I think it was related to wanting my own space and also not waiting for a man before starting my life. Thinking back to that time, I had many male friends, none of whom owned houses, and many female friends who did. When I met my now husband in 2009, we moved in together pretty quickly but I wanted my house not his, which is not what happened for various reasons. I remember selling my house and it was a little emotionally hard for me to give up my independence and this world I built for myself, and harder as Sarah says because I was already established in my life. I was 30 and had never been married when we met; my husband was 40 and divorced. I’m happily married and glad things worked out the way they did, but I’m also happy I lived on my own for nearly 8 years and I know that I can do it and can take care of many projects around the house. I have a lot of female friends who’ve never lived alone and that’s so bizarre to me.

Regarding the population decline, my husband and I are also child free by choice, though I do think if I’d gotten married younger I probably would have had kids. I am thankful every day that I don’t have them though. It does seem unethical to me to bring more children into the world when there are so many children in foster care and in unstable homes who need loving parents. I don’t understand why so many people who struggle with fertility are so resistant to adoption. I do acknowledge that the process needs to get easier, but everyone wants their ‘own’ kids and that’s sad to me, especially given what I see daily as a pediatric nurse.

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The Jussie Smollett news story sounded wrong to me as well. If I remember correctly, it had a lot to do with these MAGA supporters prowling Chicago streets at 2am during a serious cold snap, that was making national news at the time, WITH a noose and bleach, as if they were hunting for a victim when people were least likely to be out, and they just happened to recognize the supporting actor on a predominantly black show (MAGAs watch Empire?)?? I did not buy it at all.

Meghan, I was a budding minimalist (except for my books) until I met my wife, who is a sentimental a pack rat. 90% of arguments since moving in together 6 yrs ago have been over clutter and cleaning. Since we bought a house, we have more space but we’ve also filled some of it.

I understand the whole house as an investment strategy, but it has no appeal to me whatsoever. If I go through the stress of finding and buying a home and put all of that work into to upgrading it, it is going to stay my home as long as I’m comfortable.

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Some actual facts about declines in fertility in the developing world that Sarah seems unfamiliar with.

1. Fertility declined dramatically in the course of 1-2 generations all over the world (for example, average fertility in Bangladesh dropped from 6 kids per woman to approximately 2 in a period of 30-40 years) not because governments were making inept attempts to force it, but because women decided to have fewer children and had the means to do so.

2. The main reasons for women's having fewer kids is (a) increased female literacy (b) rural electrification and (c) rising incomes. Plus access to birth control.

3. Women / families with rising incomes have fewer kids because what they hope for their children changes. In extremely poor traditional societies, you have lots of kids so they can work the land and provide for elders, and you know that many will die. Plus no birth control. As parents get richer, they want their children to have education and access to better jobs, which means the investment per kid gets higher.

4. This is the point the hosts overlook when saying that women in the US have fewer kids because "things are so expensive" nowadays. Not true. Parents invest a lot more in kids, which means they are going to focus that investment on a smaller number. You can have sports, music lessons, good schools, and good healthcare for a couple of kids more easily than for 4, 5, 6 or 7.

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I wonder how old are Sarah's seven kids. She spoke of some mythical time when the kids will be in school, not want you to be with them, and then you can focus more on your career. I am at that point with my two kids and our family still chooses to have one parent (me) only work part time and I fully acknowledge this is a choice our family made. The fact is that society, and I think we really saw this highlighted in the school closures during COVID, is not structured to support two full time professional parents. School hours don't cover a full work day, sports and other kids' activities routinely take place in the early afternoon when most people are still working. Until one or both of my kids can drive they still need a parent to at a minimum drive them to places. I also want them to remember us in the stands supporting them. There is also the saying "Small kids, small problems, big kids big problems." My kids need me now more than ever even if they can wipe their own butts and make their own foods. Our pediatrician explained this perfectly when she told me "Little kids are physically demanding on your time, big kids are mentally demanding of your mind." So part time work for me works best for our family to give both parents and the kids the best work life balance.

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This was a truly great episode. I kept telling myself I’d have time to come back and comment on the 1000 fascinating subjects you talked about and your many different takes and my takes on your takes and so on… but I just won’t have time. I did want to say though how much I LOVED this episode -especially the bonus content -and how truly impressive, entertaining, and interesting I find you both! Great show!

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I agree that it’s atypical for coastal college educated people to settle down in their twenties, but the exception seems to be the children of stupendous generational wealth. This is based only on anecdata -- years of browsing the class notes in certain alumni magazines, including an old east coast boarding school -- but it does seem that if your dad is a member of the Society of Colonial Wars, if your middle or surname appears on buildings at Yale or Princeton or on wings at the Met, you’re far more likely to be married by 25.

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I have strong anti-natalist feelings, but given that I'm a nihilist, I can't say that it's immoral to have children 😆

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so many of our so-called choices are due to circumstance and chance.

chance: my husband and I were lucky enough to buy a house when it was still affordable for young couples starting out (although we did have to move to a town 45 minutes away from our jobs to meet that affordability criteria)

circumstance: I assumed getting pregnant would be easy - it was not. but that made my desire/choice strong enough that it altered my future choices: I homeschooled my kids whereas I'm certain I would have 'chosen' public school if getting pregnant had been easy. what we think are choices are often just patterns presented to us.

also Sarah? that poem Good Bones was so powerful and I'll be forever grateful that you shared it

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That was the more challenging episode for me so far, and I erased my comment twice and I am very proud of me for not sharing it. I realized I am a moderate anti-natalist and a profound doomer.

Thanks for this.

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I think the environmental and economic arguments are real, but that's not the end of anti-natalism. Having kids is kind of a thing among legitimately rich people, and certainly among the poor, but among the upper middle class, the professional managers, it always just seemed utterly contemptible to me on a cultural level. I mean, would you want to be an MTV teen mom?

When I was in my teens or early 20's, getting pregnant seemed a sign of stupidity, for people who lacked the skill to correctly apply a condom. Merit was in having as much sexual experience as possible with as many people as possible without getting tied down. Getting married was for people who weren't attractive enough to continue dating. Getting a minivan marked you as a loser. Kids were largely unseen and objects of disgust and derision. This is an East Coast mentality; being in the South or the Midwest has been noticeably different.

Mind you, not my personal views. My personal antinatalism is because I hate some of my blood relatives so much I want to breed their genes out of existence. I've come to like kids. I see the humanistic argument for wanting to have more of them. But I don't remember a single peer in my undergrad years even discussing the possibility of intentionally having children (shouting your abortion, however, was definitely a thing). Even thinking about getting married was just such a quaint idea. This is way bigger than Malthusianism.

I also remember being very influenced by that Alexandra Pelosi documentary on Jesus Camp, where some looney evangelical Christian rambled on about how she had to outreproduce the Muslims and indoctrinate the kids in her camp for a holy war. Any time someone talks about pro-natalist positions, I think about that lady. When you talk about having more kids as a middle-class white American, it makes it sound like you're worried about Great Replacement and you're trying to fight against that, and of course, you wouldn't want to be that person either.

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Re: the cost of raising a family, one major change in the last 50 years is that housing costs have outpaced inflation. It used to be that a working class couple could have a single breadwinner who earns enough to buy a house. Nowadays that’s a lot harder, especially in high de and metro areas. Meghan mention Boise - it’s been one of the fast growing cities over the last 10 years and housing prices have gone through the roof. Indianapolis? Not so much

https://www.in2013dollars.com/Housing/price-inflation

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