And it’s also strategically a good idea to have 40 year old kids when you turn 80 yourself. Edit: wanted to pose this as a theoretical question, putting health risks aside.
People are not having kids because nobody can afford it. DINK can barely afford a house, adding a kid too early into the mix ensures you’ll never get one.
Not even just houses. More time spent studying get into the top colleges, leetcode to get the best jobs, living with parents so it’s harder to meet up, internet promoting hookups and staying open for something better, incel culture normalizing men staying immature, etc
impregnating someone these days = $$$ , if you don't have enough money then that means low quality of life for you, the kid, and mother
“Enough” doesn’t exist. Life is about trade offs. It’s mostly a myth about quality of life being low if you don’t have “enough” money, at least as it relates to most of the population on Blind. Traditional family set up with one parent making $100K can do just fine. Like our parents, you move out to the ‘burbs or out of CA once school age hits so you don’t have to pay for private school.
Late kids is not good. Many risk factors for genetic defects shoot sky high. Early 30s or late 20s are perfect time for having cute little ones. Not having them is fine as well. Anyway, it’s a personal choice.
Late teens or early 20s is still biologically better though, but thats impossible socially nowadays
Totally agree. Just that society has changed doesn’t mean this 1000s year old mechanism has moved a bit.
This is dumb. 1 in 8 couples have a hard time getting pregnant. When women reach 40 they have a 5% chance of getting pregnant. Now add in the costs of just going through with the pregnancy is something around 30k. So the only people getting Prego are those in the Midwest who have low cost of living, could get a house on those 60 -80k salaries and afford a kid on top that. Us in the bay in particularly can’t afford jack. So if you can’t afford jack when you’re in your 20’s. The cost of having a baby is ridiculous (not even factoring the potential costs to send that fool to school) And then by time you think you’re financially ready, bam you can’t have one. So it isn’t some great strategy to wait. Life is just making it seem like less and less of a good idea and then by time it may be right to have, one you can’t. Ain’t that some shit?
Great explanation.
Only if people could get rid of one misconception. You don't need a house to have kids. Everything else in bay area is on par with the salaries
No. The risk of various disorders for the baby rises quickly after the mother reaches the late 30's. It's not about life expectancy, it's about career and financial goals. Children are expensive, and student loans need to be paid back. Houses are also expensive. Some people don't want to put their career and future earnings on hold to raise a child.
Watch the opening sequence in the movie Idiocracy. It explains everythjng.
Love that movie and how true of a dystopian society we are going to have.
It is so funny that IT people making or boasting of 300K cannot afford kid(s) and middle or even lower middle class have 2-3 kids. Then these same DNK complain about immigrants taking over country. Having kids or not having kids is personal choice but dont bring cost into it. Damn, high income really have poluted brains to put a price tag to everything.
As someone who has friends in multiple socio-economic classes, I think the reason for this is that expectations for raising an upper middle class child are very high. My lower-middle class / working class friends don’t expect to spend any money on their kid’s education, or for babysitting, or housekeeping, etc. While upper middle class families assume they’ll be paying for private school, day care, private child care, summer camps, tutors etc. Maintenance of an upper middle class lifestyle for the next generation is costly. Maintenance of a working class lifestyle costs only food/clothes/shelter.
100% true. Kids are not expensive if your life isn’t expensive. But if you try to lululemon-ify raising kids, yeah it’s going to cost you. Class signaling isn’t cheap.
Life expectancy hasn’t changed much if you remove infant deaths.
Check ourworldindata.org. Thanks to advance medicine we are going towards immortality.
Freeze your eggs. Problem solved. The other factor people aren’t considering is that under the current healthcare system, you are pretty unhireable if you get laid off in your 50s, particularly if a white male. That’s due to your healthcare costs (can be well over $50K of cost to the company for a family of four) as well as your skill deterioration. So picture having a couple teenagers getting ready to go to college and your lifetime earning is done.
With the increased chances of health risks for baby and mom, it makes sense people don't ignore science.