The studies do show that having children is inversely related to happiness, but many people choose to have children anyways since they get a different sort of satisfaction from having children.
A major flaw that seems to run fairly consistently through these studies is that they aren’t longitudinal over the course of an entire lifetime. That is, they focus entirely on the effect on happiness of having children while they are children, and ignore the possible difference in happiness when the parents are elderly. The old person surrounded by children and grandchildren is quite plausibly going be happier than the increasingly isolated person watching their friends die off one by one in the relatively unappealing environment of an assisted living facility.
I was never brought up in a loving or close family (asian parents), so I don’t really see any benefits to having a family
The conclusion does not follow from the premise. This seems like excellent reasoning for employing different parenting strategies and family values than you experienced in your childhood, not evidence that there is no benefit to family under any circumstances.
A major flaw that seems to run fairly consistently through these studies is that they aren’t longitudinal over the course of an entire lifetime. That is, they focus entirely on the effect on happiness of having children while they are children, and ignore the possible difference in happiness when the parents are elderly. The old person surrounded by children and grandchildren is quite plausibly going be happier than the increasingly isolated person watching their friends die off one by one in the relatively unappealing environment of an assisted living facility.
True, those are good points.
The conclusion does not follow from the premise. This seems like excellent reasoning for employing different parenting strategies and family values than you experienced in your childhood, not evidence that there is no benefit to family under any circumstances.
Perhaps. But having never felt familial love, I’m very resistant to the idea of starting a family, and I default to a decision to not start one. If I could even feel any reward from having a family (the way a lot of white families feel), then maybe I might intrinsically default to the other decision. To me, having a family sounds like an extremely irrational decision (one made out of a decision to cave into social pressure rather than from any real intrinsic reward), but that’s because I’ve never felt the intense rewards that other people have felt from having families
A major flaw that seems to run fairly consistently through these studies is that they aren’t longitudinal over the course of an entire lifetime. That is, they focus entirely on the effect on happiness of having children while they are children, and ignore the possible difference in happiness when the parents are elderly. The old person surrounded by children and grandchildren is quite plausibly going be happier than the increasingly isolated person watching their friends die off one by one in the relatively unappealing environment of an assisted living facility.
Is there a difference between saying that and saying “the reasons I have kids is so that I won’t be lonely when I’m older”. Seems like an unfair expectation on the child. I have great difficulty with seeing it as ethical to expect anything off offspring. Where am I going wrong?
Pre-industrial revolution, people had the expectation that their offspring would work for the family as soon as they were able, because that was the only way parents or children were going to survive. It seems a worthy trade for existing. Post-industrial revolution, I don’t think people consciously have children primarily for the benefit to themselves. There may be an underlying economic logic to it, but people think they are having children for the benefit of the children.
You haven’t really explained your ethical objection, so it is hard to reply to. I think one can make both contractarian (with a hypothetical choice between never existing at all, or an agreement to support one’s helpless parents after they have supported you when you were helpless, pretty much everyone would choose the latter, and we can therefore infer the consent of future children living in non-abusive families) and consequentialist (the norm of children supporting their parents in old age encourages bringing more children into existence, which is generally taken to be a good thing above the repugnant conclusion threshhold) arguments in favor of it.
My ethical objection has to do with the imposition of life on a being without their consent(which is impossible they don’t exist), with full knowledge of the inherent cruelties of both your existence and theirs. I think people have children for the same reason they’ve always had children, which is ensure genetic off spring anything else around it is consequential. I don’t want to have kids for example or at least not the conventional way it just seems altogether a cruel thing to do with current understanding of the world.
A major flaw that seems to run fairly consistently through these studies is that they aren’t longitudinal over the course of an entire lifetime. That is, they focus entirely on the effect on happiness of having children while they are children, and ignore the possible difference in happiness when the parents are elderly. The old person surrounded by children and grandchildren is quite plausibly going be happier than the increasingly isolated person watching their friends die off one by one in the relatively unappealing environment of an assisted living facility.
The conclusion does not follow from the premise. This seems like excellent reasoning for employing different parenting strategies and family values than you experienced in your childhood, not evidence that there is no benefit to family under any circumstances.
True, those are good points.
Perhaps. But having never felt familial love, I’m very resistant to the idea of starting a family, and I default to a decision to not start one. If I could even feel any reward from having a family (the way a lot of white families feel), then maybe I might intrinsically default to the other decision. To me, having a family sounds like an extremely irrational decision (one made out of a decision to cave into social pressure rather than from any real intrinsic reward), but that’s because I’ve never felt the intense rewards that other people have felt from having families
Is there a difference between saying that and saying “the reasons I have kids is so that I won’t be lonely when I’m older”. Seems like an unfair expectation on the child. I have great difficulty with seeing it as ethical to expect anything off offspring. Where am I going wrong?
Pre-industrial revolution, people had the expectation that their offspring would work for the family as soon as they were able, because that was the only way parents or children were going to survive. It seems a worthy trade for existing. Post-industrial revolution, I don’t think people consciously have children primarily for the benefit to themselves. There may be an underlying economic logic to it, but people think they are having children for the benefit of the children.
You haven’t really explained your ethical objection, so it is hard to reply to. I think one can make both contractarian (with a hypothetical choice between never existing at all, or an agreement to support one’s helpless parents after they have supported you when you were helpless, pretty much everyone would choose the latter, and we can therefore infer the consent of future children living in non-abusive families) and consequentialist (the norm of children supporting their parents in old age encourages bringing more children into existence, which is generally taken to be a good thing above the repugnant conclusion threshhold) arguments in favor of it.
My ethical objection has to do with the imposition of life on a being without their consent(which is impossible they don’t exist), with full knowledge of the inherent cruelties of both your existence and theirs. I think people have children for the same reason they’ve always had children, which is ensure genetic off spring anything else around it is consequential. I don’t want to have kids for example or at least not the conventional way it just seems altogether a cruel thing to do with current understanding of the world.
Right I’m down 2 karma points with no explanation. Care to enlighten me?
Ya I’d still really like to know why what I’ve said is so harsh.