[quote=scaredyclassic]i like lifting weights. i could pay someone to lift weights for me, but it would kind of defeat the purpose.
i could have kids and pay someone else to raise them. but wouldnt that kind of defeat the purpose in a similar way.?
isn’t raising kids more like an art, a craft, a hobby and a purpose, than a job?
sure, if you were in a bind and needed to pay someone to watch the damned kids, it would cost you a pretty penny.
but that’s not the plan going in, right? the plan is it’s unpriced, priceless, and while it is hopefully appreciated, we can’t really pretend our kids are making the world a richer better place. they are a drain. a cost. like a hobby.
if id had 1 kid instead of 3, my wife woulda got back to work sooner, and we’d be quite a bit “wealthier” in terms of money. all the rich life satisfaction we got out of the other 2 would be missing though, and our lif would not be nearly as cool as it is, but…what about the unborn ones…the girl… she misses the daughter we never had.
but if we’d had that 4th kid, a girl, and she had had to watch the kids longer, we’d be even poorer, hell we wouldnt be living in this nice house probably. we’d have been screwed financially i think. 3 was the limit of what we could do to be in the situation we are in. even that was pretty hairy.
i know I would have been out even more money if we’d had that kid and had to pay a nanny to watch her. but if we’d had her, and my wife watched her, our net worth would be a lot lower.
imputed income my ass.
we would have had no house, and much much less savings.
but is this whole “savings” thing a moneymaking enterprise? you just can’t get rich having kids…
i concede the work is worth money, but not real money…. the plan is never to make money by having kids. and you seem to say that it’s a savings, JUST LIKE INCOME.
this kind of family planning is planning for bankruptcy…
if i make a big giant mess in the house on purpose, i could pay someone to clean it up, but i cant get richer by making messes and cleaning them up myself.
that’s what kids is liek to me.
it’s like having a big giant problematic mess you created with your spouse that somehow you ahve to deal with.
jst cause it would cost money to get someone to come in and clean it up doesnt mean yousaved money because you actually made the mess on purpose. you wanted the damned mess…[/quote]
You are totally not getting it. It’s not the kids that represent the “savings.” It’s having someone to do all of the work involved in raising them and caring for the household so that you don’t have to pay someone else to do it (or do it yourself) that has monetary value.
And there IS monetary value in childbearing, nursing, etc. Surrogates aren’t cheap, and if everyone had to hire a surrogate in order to have children of their own (and carry their family names!), it would cost even more than it does now. Again, that love and affection stuff masks the true cost of this service, so the demand for these services is lower than it would be if the service were provided by “the market.”
And many cultures throughout history have considered large families and children to be an economic asset, as they provided “free” labor and also entitled people in some cultures to more land and resources, along with increasing a family’s security and prestige. My own grandparents had multiple children so that they could have a more productive farm. I’m sure you wouldn’t have to go too far back in your own family line to find a similar situation.
