Ambitious people do cooperate to raise their kids. They hire babysitters, in-home tutors and teachers, and send kids to camp. They also send their kids to each others’ houses when convenient for parties and hangouts.
If people choose not to have kids because they’re ambitious, it’s for any of three reasons.
They straightforwardly prefer their career to childrearing, even though both have value, and are in the process of wrapping their head around the opportunity cost of choosing not to be a parent.
Being too absent as a parent is socially and legally sanctioned. For example, it’s not OK to say “I want to have a kid, get divorced, and see my child for a few hours every other weekend, so that I can keep focusing on my career! That’s the perfect amount of parenting for me!” And yet this outcome happens often enough that you have to wonder if this is the conscious goal for a fair number of ambitious people who are driving their marriages toward divorce.
Parenting is too expensive, or cheaper/more intensive babysitting arrangements are too complicated or constraining to arrange. It’s not considered responsible to say “I’m going to rack up a bunch of debt paying for childcare while I’m still in school, but it doesn’t matter because I expect to make plenty of money to pay it back later on.” Even though it might be OK to take this strategy sometimes. Imagine, for example, a med school student who knows it costs around $10,000 a year to pay for childcare. They pick a $200,000 medical school rather than a $250,000 school, and use the savings to fund the first 5 years of raising their child. Likewise, you could set up a gated community with a bunch of other parents. But what if 50% of the families move out over the course of 5 years, and a bunch of strangers move in with you having no control over who they are?
The main problem with point 2 in my opinion is with not being honest about one’s priorities. Otherwise, why would they marry and divorce, instead of staying single, or staying legally married but living separately?
There are rich men who essentially have a deal with their lovers: “I will knock you up, you will take all care of the baby, and I will abandon you at some moment in future, but I will give you enough money to raise the child without needing to get a job”. And both sides seem to be happy with the deal: the man keeps his career, and is happy about having reproduced biologically; the woman gets an early retirement.
Problem is with men who want the same deal, without being able/willing to pay enough money to make it a great deal also for the woman. (Assuming, stereotypically, that it’s the man who follows his career, and woman who stays with the kids.)
They pick a $200,000 medical school rather than a $250,000 school, and use the savings to fund the first 5 years of raising their child.
The economics of this are substantially worse. Someone in medical school has very little free time, and so needs more than the standard amount of childcare. Even standard child care, however, is going to cost more than $10k/y, more like $20k.
Ambitious people do cooperate to raise their kids. They hire babysitters, in-home tutors and teachers, and send kids to camp. They also send their kids to each others’ houses when convenient for parties and hangouts.
If people choose not to have kids because they’re ambitious, it’s for any of three reasons.
They straightforwardly prefer their career to childrearing, even though both have value, and are in the process of wrapping their head around the opportunity cost of choosing not to be a parent.
Being too absent as a parent is socially and legally sanctioned. For example, it’s not OK to say “I want to have a kid, get divorced, and see my child for a few hours every other weekend, so that I can keep focusing on my career! That’s the perfect amount of parenting for me!” And yet this outcome happens often enough that you have to wonder if this is the conscious goal for a fair number of ambitious people who are driving their marriages toward divorce.
Parenting is too expensive, or cheaper/more intensive babysitting arrangements are too complicated or constraining to arrange. It’s not considered responsible to say “I’m going to rack up a bunch of debt paying for childcare while I’m still in school, but it doesn’t matter because I expect to make plenty of money to pay it back later on.” Even though it might be OK to take this strategy sometimes. Imagine, for example, a med school student who knows it costs around $10,000 a year to pay for childcare. They pick a $200,000 medical school rather than a $250,000 school, and use the savings to fund the first 5 years of raising their child. Likewise, you could set up a gated community with a bunch of other parents. But what if 50% of the families move out over the course of 5 years, and a bunch of strangers move in with you having no control over who they are?
The main problem with point 2 in my opinion is with not being honest about one’s priorities. Otherwise, why would they marry and divorce, instead of staying single, or staying legally married but living separately?
There are rich men who essentially have a deal with their lovers: “I will knock you up, you will take all care of the baby, and I will abandon you at some moment in future, but I will give you enough money to raise the child without needing to get a job”. And both sides seem to be happy with the deal: the man keeps his career, and is happy about having reproduced biologically; the woman gets an early retirement.
Problem is with men who want the same deal, without being able/willing to pay enough money to make it a great deal also for the woman. (Assuming, stereotypically, that it’s the man who follows his career, and woman who stays with the kids.)
I do wonder what fraction of the times this happens that it was discussed openly and enthusiastically consented to by both parties.
The economics of this are substantially worse. Someone in medical school has very little free time, and so needs more than the standard amount of childcare. Even standard child care, however, is going to cost more than $10k/y, more like $20k.