mlev

Another book that might be helpful is Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids by the economist Bryan Caplan. His two main arguments are:

1) Adult outcomes are driven almost entirely by genes and non-parental environmental factors, so you can take a much lower-stress approach to parenting than most western parents do these days and the kids will be fine.

2) When making this decision, we tend to imagine having a baby much more than having older or grown children (or grandchildren!), and the work and stress of kids generally declines over time while the rewards increase. In econ-speak, we too strongly discount when deciding whether or not to have kids.

I’ll add that I found persuasive the argument that the downside of having kids is easily visible and appreciable while the upside is harder to see or imagine, and the internet’s filter for negativity makes this even worse. I thought this episode of the Ezra Kline show was interesting on this. The first half is about fertility rates, but the second half is a really interesting personal-meets-sociological exploration of why birth rates are declining. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/19/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jennifer-sciubba.html