Selfish reasons to have more kids
Contrarian economist Bryan Caplan takes on family planning and happiness--and turns conventional wisdom on its head.
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What Hacker News says
- The purpose of life is to make more life (children). Life forms that do not do that die out. Having children give you so much fulfillment and purpose.
There is a good book on this topic "Selfish reasons to have more kids" https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-selfish-reasons...
- Bryan Caplan's book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids helped me calm down a lot about this topic.
https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/046...
- This recent Atlantic article does a decent job at summarizing the argument: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/parenting-...
And these two books have good, if somewhat redundant surveys of the research:
- No Two Alike: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1099821
- Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10266902
The tl;dr is that if you fall into the cohort that could likely adopt a child, your parenting decisions aren’t going to make much of an impact, beyond affecting your kid’s memories of their childhood and their relationship with you. And that doesn’t mean parents should become apathetic, but that it’s better to care about expressing warmth and kindness instead of stressing about achievement.
- What has helped me was a combination of trying to really simplify life, and accepting and embracing that things will be hard, and that this will require a lot of energy and strength. I see my pre-parent self as really weak, and am genuinely grateful for how hard this has been, because it has helped forge me into someone with real strength, that I didn't have before and never would have had. I'm not going to lie, I was a mess the first few years as a parent and was massively stressed, couldn't sleep, and couldn't figure out how to find time just to do basic care for my body not alone enjoy hobbies.
For your example, I usually take out the trash together with him, we each hold half of the handle. It takes 10 minutes to get him dressed and willing to do this, but it works. I try to avoid TV and media, but will occasionally use it as a babysitter when I need to do something like a meeting or cook food. I do sometimes do zoom meetings with him, and cook food together with him. The more I can engage him in adult activities, the less bored he is, and the less he acts up, gets hurt, etc.
These sources had ideas that helped me the most: * Magda Gerber's RIE Philosophy (see https://www.janetlansbury.com), especially useful before age 3 * Ryan Holiday's "The Daily Dad" e-mail list (now also a book) * "Simplicity Parenting" by Kim Payne and Lisa Ross * "Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids" by Bryan Caplan didn't have much specifically useful advice, but basically taught me to just relax and have fun as a parent, and not worry that I am messing everything up * The "Outdoor Boys" Youtube channel. This guy is a total badass, and brings his 3 boys on epic wilderness adventures alone
I don't have any family support, but did recently move in with an amazing girlfriend, that is willing to help trade off parenting duties.
- I recommend a book called "Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids" by Bryan Caplan. It's a short read, and very interesting. The basic argument is that we've turned modern parenting into a stressful chore, much as you describe. But by looking at separated twin studies, he argues that what we do as parents has much less impact on how our kids turn out than we would probably like to believe. Essentially, if your parenting is within decent normal parameters (i.e. there isn't an abusive situation or anything like that) your kids will probably turn out ok, and if they don't, it will probably not be because of anything you did.
This argument really goes against accepted wisdom, especially if you tend to the theory that your kids are malleable clay for you to shape as you wish. But intuitively, it makes a lot of sense. My brother and I were essentially raised in the same environment, and we could not be more different. So, which of us did my parents' input produce, and why didn't it work for the other one?
It seems counterintuitive, but embracing the idea that what you do doesn't make as much difference as you'd expect is very liberating. Like all parenting books, I'm sure some of the data is cherry picked to make a point so I take it with a grain of salt, but I've definitely changed my attitude as a result and it's made parenting much more pleasant. I'm not totally checked out, I'm still doing the best I can, but I'm not as anxious about how what I'm doing affects my daughter. Basically, it's much easier to enjoy the ride if you're not constantly stressing about what you're doing wrong, and counterintuitively (or not, perhaps) that has made me a better father.
- Theres a good book called “Selfish Reasons to have more kids.” It relies on happiness studies and “regrets” survivors to argue that childlessness/few children is irrational.
People are happier and more content when they have more children. And the numbers, in terms of reported and assessed contentment are massive.
A lot of the “is it rational to have more kids” thinking relies on narrow versions of happiness and self-interest, rather than the broader definitions of happiness which people actually experience.
Regarding the issue of “whether you can provide” … it’s common for people to come to America from foreign countries with very large families. And they provide for their kids.
And the kids often do quite well.
