While I obviously agree that bad parenting can produce bad kids, your statement is a gross oversimplification. Many good parents have one high-functioning child, and another child with a lot of problems.

This post should be sobering for the fringe posters who seem to think that adopting a child is similar to adopting a dog from an animal shelter.

Do people really care about their "bloodline"? I happen to have biological children, but not because I care about my bloodline. I'm not Tywin Lannister.

Please cite one 30-year period in the last 200 years when economic conditions were unchanged over that period and/or when someone accurately predicted what the economy would look like in 30 years.

Having children is not great - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tr4NtcN6dw

No kids, no wife, no problems in life.

@Yak: I don't want to even think about these numbers. Food, clothes, health insurance, orthodontics, transportation, activities -- it adds up fast. Kids are expensive.

Private school here in the US in major cities is $30,000+. Our private school in Minneapolis was $29,000 per kid five years ago, and the top rung private schools here in DC are $35,000 or so, in after-tax dollars.

I'm 51, with two kids: 15 and 13. Professional career, married.

It would enhance this thread if the posters gave a basic bio to put some context around your opinion. For instance, I'm 44 and married with kids age 12, 9, 6.

Have kids, don't have kids, join the peace corp, get a degree, move to a new country, do whatever you think will make you happy. Just do something to evolve as a person. Don't NOT do something because you don't want your current social/economic circumstances to change. They will change eventually, the only question is whether you will be the one driving the change.

no child can survive without an ivy league kindergarten education for $30,000*/yr


*(books and meals not included)

I'm not saying that's a necessity, obviously.

I went from thinking I might never have kids, to having 2 in less than 1 year of time.

Certainly plenty of negatives, but IMO the positives out weight them by a lot.Time/Sleep are definitely things that you wave bye to during certain periods of your kids lives, but you learn to adapt.

I feel like there's definitely levels of feelings that you will only get to tap into by your children bringing them out. Some truly amazing feelings.

Did they both just 'happen' ?

@Howard
What would average/community education cost a year up until HS in the US ?

29 with a (relatively new) partner here, pretty sure I want children at some point but I can't imagine Ill ever be ready for it.

The plan wasn't to have them that close, but when I found out the first one was a girl, I wanted to get right back in the saddle and make sure I was giving myself proper boy equity.

Luckily for me, the 2nd one was a boy.

why not. I know we are smart animals and have "higher" needs but its your biological imperative.

seems like such a failure to go 50 million generations and have it end with you

This is interesting but it's kind of beyond debate. Why do we have kids? It's like we are people and that's just what we do. Like why do we want to be photographed winning live MTTs or sleep with hot women or drive fast or eat too much food or help other people? Not everyone wants to do all or some of those things, which is fine too.

As for money/resources...

"Hats off to the factory lad who with fourpence in the world, puts his girl in the family way. At least, he’s got blood and not money in his veins" - George Orwell in Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

... in the 1930s when George Orwell wrote that, people managed to have kids living in far more difficult circumstances than we are living in now. My great-grandmother in the 1920s brought up seven kids on a coal miner's pay. GDP per capita now is at record or near record levels in most of the world and crime is lower now at least than when we were kids (for most 2p2 countries/player ages). It's just a question of what your values are. Yes, you get stressed about things and you will experience financial, practical, educational and child-psychological problems - just not one's my great-grandmother would have recognised or had the luxury or time to worry about. Regardless of the debate whether or not it's harder for us than it was for our parent's generation (though one advantage we have is that arming both parents with mobile phones solves a lot of practical problems) - the fact is that we are here because generations of parents before us made it work, and in most families when you go back more than a few generations you are usually talking about people living subsistence lifestyles, not able to write and with no access to information. They did it, so can we.

I agree with this 100%. Of course, who would have thought that they would be in their twenties and thirties.



On a more serious note, grandkids do take away some of the burden of having children., they are really awesome.

I think the most challenging thing about raising kids today is the effort it takes to keep up with them, technology-wise.

My 18 month old granddaughter already has her own set of apps on her mom's kindle. She knows how to slide her finger to get to them. The eight and nine year olds can already troubleshoot some things quicker than their parents.

In years to come, I don't know how youll all keep up. Kids are like sponges. It's scary-awesome.

Public school is free. It's funded by property taxes, but if you own a house, you're paying the taxes regardless of whether you send your kids to public schools. The whole private/public school debate is a legitimate one to have and rages on here in the US. Private school advocates say that public schools are inefficient, bureaucratic, union-laden, political and rule-bound; public-school advocates say private schools are elitist, mean, cultish and insanely expensive. In our case, we found the public schools (very highly rated by every measure we could find) were inconsistent. Some programs, particularly maths, were excellent. Others were awful: inconsistent, disorganized, and shallow. It was also massively overcrowded and bureaucratic.

The current private school is much much more rigorous. I would never say it's objectively better for everyone; subjectively, it has so far proven to be a good decision for both of the Little Ts.

im going on 29, happily married, with a daughter approaching two years old, another due in September(not sure of sex, we dont find out)

kids are fun. im a professional poker player and get to stay home with my daughter all week. as mentioned there are pros and cons, i guess, but def more pros. they are gonna cost a bit (especially with bad health insurance as poker player, my next child is gonna cost and a arm and leg to birth). my wife and i are pretty lenient about her sleep schedule. last two nights she has been playing in my office until 1 am because she keeps crawling out of bed, wanting to play, because she knows im awake pry. Then, she finally lays down at 1 am sleeps until about 4 am, wakes up, crawls out of bed and throws a huge tantrum, just being tired, and stubborn. she walks out to the living room hoping my wife or i will come join her but we dont so she cries for like 30 minutes, she was testing our patience. she eventually gave in because we laid in bed, so she eventually joined and then slept until noon today. she brings out a lot of smiles in me and she will keep me young as i grow older, i hope. ultimately, she is just a lot of fun, and you learn a lot about responsibility being a parent. i enjoy my family and i don't think i will ever regret having children.

I hate sex with condoms. As insipit and eerie as it is, I will only have children if a female decides to lie to me about taking the pill. Then I'd have to marry her, if she gets pregnant.

She doesnt have to lie for her to get pregnant.

I know...I also hate bad variance.
My ex-ex was sterilized, which initially sounded like a lotto-win, but ofc she was a borderline-nut-job, and unmanagable after 2 months...
My ex always made sure to let me see how she took her pill, since I communicated my anxiety, and she also promised me to abort any unexpected surprises.
Working on a new one, who told me she doesn't want kids on the phone, before we've even been on our first date, which I appreciated a lot.

Way too many people who aren't even remotely close to be able to manage their own lifes are getting children today. I do not have to become one of them. At least not, if I can avoid it.

Why don't you just get a vasectomy? Seems like a better plan than marrying a psychotic girl that lied to you about taking the pill.

Learn to tell where they are on their cycle. EZ game.

Agree. I understand you can do it by smell.

@crimedopay420
I think a vasectomy might be a good option as plan B, but staying away from borderline-girls will first of all be my way to go for a while now.

@FeralCreature
I'm unsure if I'm able to put a solid read on a new gf's cycle in the beginning / first few weeks of being with her, and after that, I usually have enough info about her to not have to do that. BTW, was that a joke?