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Going childless in the U.S.

SField

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Contrast that with some countries in eastern europe. This summer I was in a few countries including Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. I have never, ever seen so many strollers in my life.
 

jase12

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Originally Posted by kwilkinson
Cuz makin babies is fer perpetuatin da human race, playa. Ain't nuttin selfish bout it.

yep im sure thats what goes through everyones say when they are trying to have kids.

" honey, you know we really should start thinking about doing our part for the human race and making sure we don't get close to extinction.'

rather than

'aww babies are so cute i love you lets have one'
 

Connemara

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Originally Posted by kwilkinson
Cuz makin babies is fer perpetuatin da human race, playa. Ain't nuttin selfish bout it.
Um, no. Not anymore.
 

globetrotter

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I am very happy having kids. I can understand why one might not want to have them. I ahve a few friends who don't, and don't plan on it.
 

Connemara

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Originally Posted by kwilkinson
On an evolutionary, instinctive level, that's all it ever was. Besides, none of this affects you.
Whiny, snot-filled, shrieking children affect my sanity.
 

zippyh

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Been married 21 years and no children. Never any desire to have any.
My wife is more anti-child than I.
Actually it's not that she dislikes children so much as the dipshits who can't imagine that a woman wouldn't want to become a mommy.
 

Jumbie

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Originally Posted by Connemara
Whiny, snot-filled, shrieking children affect my sanity.

+ 1,000,000,000,000

Every time I hear kids running down the hall in the shithole apartment I live in or screaming in the parking lot outside, it reinforces my desire not to have any.
 

AintDatRite

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I come from a rather large family with 8 siblings; I nor my siblings followed in our parents footsteps, except one brother. I have one brother that has his own little herd of children. Two of my sisters have two children each. I guess I'm selfish; I decided long ago that I dont want the hassle of children. My brother made the same decision early in his marriage but he told his wife she could have children, IF she really wanted. He said he would be the 'perfect parent' in public but she would have to raise the kids. He said he would prefer to send them to a boarding school until they were 18. For those reasons, she made the decision to not have kids; when they divorced, she did have a daughter with her new husband and spoiled the hell out of that kid. Her daugher had a 1500 ft² 'life size' doll house in the backyard which most people might consider a guest house.... however, they built it as a playhouse for their daughter.

I tend to piss off a few people because I dont believe you should have children unless you can afford them. Parents should be able to afford to pay ALL of a child's expenses: medical/dental, education, clothing, food, etc.. I believe parents should have to pay 100% of the expenses of educating their children; I dont believe taxpayers should get stuck with the bill for educating other's children.

If you can't feed 'em, dont breed 'em™

In my opinion, a good minimum 'income' for a single person is $60K; a couple should earn a minimum of $90K. For the first child, add another $10K.... each additional child, add $30K. Therefore, most American couples cannot afford to have children... and shouldn't. Yeah yeah... children bring great joy and are worth every expense. blah blah blah. If you have to go into debt (ie: credit cards) to buy your children clothes.... you cant afford them (the clothes or the children).
 

SField

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Originally Posted by AintDatRite
I come from a rather large family with 8 siblings; I nor my siblings followed in our parents footsteps, except one brother. I have one brother that has his own little herd of children. Two of my sisters have two children each. I guess I'm selfish; I decided long ago that I dont want the hassle of children. My brother made the same decision early in his marriage but he told his wife she could have children, IF she really wanted. He said he would be the 'perfect parent' in public but she would have to raise the kids. He said he would prefer to send them to a boarding school until they were 18. For those reasons, she made the decision to not have kids; when they divorced, she did have a daughter with her new husband and spoiled the hell out of that kid. Her daugher had a 1500 ft² 'life size' doll house in the backyard which most people might consider a guest house.... however, they built it as a playhouse for their daughter.

I tend to piss off a few people because I dont believe you should have children unless you can afford them. Parents should be able to afford to pay ALL of a child's expenses: medical/dental, education, clothing, food, etc.. I believe parents should have to pay 100% of the expenses of educating their children; I dont believe taxpayers should get stuck with the bill for educating other's children.

If you can't feed 'em, dont breed 'emâ„¢

In my opinion, a good minimum 'income' for a single person is $60K; a couple should earn a minimum of $90K. For the first child, add another $10K.... each additional child, add $30K. Therefore, most American couples cannot afford to have children... and shouldn't. Yeah yeah... children bring great joy and are worth every expense. blah blah blah. If you have to go into debt (ie: credit cards) to buy your children clothes.... you cant afford them (the clothes or the children).


It can be enormously expensive to raise a child. I've heard the figure to be as high as 1 million if private school is intended and a good college education.
 

crazyquik

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The problem is the tweedy graduate school types aren't having kids, and teh poores are. Not to mention teh illegals clinging to their anchor babies and religion.

We need to discourage low income people from having kids, and encourage high income people into having them. These are not political platforms that you can run on though
plain.gif


This board is overlooking a historic benefit of children, under the old social norms they would take care of you when you're old and senile (a reciprocation of when they took care of you when you were young and maleable).

Apparently there is a BabyBoomerang (or some stupid term) of old people moving back in with their 50 year old kids now that is about to sweep the country.
 

Piobaire

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Late 30s, no kids. No plans to have them either. I'm the second youngest of 11 kids. Ain't nothing I don't know about kids. No need to have my own.

Read King Lear. I see it played out time and time IRL at work.
 

jase12

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Originally Posted by crazyquik
The problem is the tweedy graduate school types aren't having kids, and teh poores are. Not to mention teh illegals clinging to their anchor babies and religion.

We need to discourage low income people from having kids, and encourage high income people into having them. These are not political platforms that you can run on though
plain.gif


This board is overlooking a historic benefit of children, under the old social norms they would take care of you when you're old and senile (a reciprocation of when they took care of you when you were young and maleable).

Apparently there is a BabyBoomerang (or some stupid term) of old people moving back in with their 50 year old kids now that is about to sweep the country.


has anyone here seen the movie Idiocracy? this guys gets frozen and wakes up like 2000 years later and is the smartest guy on earth, due to the fact that all the intelligent people were bred out. bit of a dumb movie but actually a really interesting concept.
 

kwilkinson

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Originally Posted by jase12
has anyone here seen the movie Idiocracy? this guys gets frozen and wakes up like 2000 years later and is the smartest guy on earth, due to the fact that all the intelligent people were bred out. bit of a dumb movie but actually a really interesting concept.

It was pretty damn funny, too.
 

Jumbie

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Originally Posted by jase12
has anyone here seen the movie Idiocracy? this guys gets frozen and wakes up like 2000 years later and is the smartest guy on earth, due to the fact that all the intelligent people were bred out. bit of a dumb movie but actually a really interesting concept.

I really am not sure how much of a link there is between intelligence and genetics but typically more educated/affluent people have fewer (or no) kids compared with those who are less educated and/or poor.

***

Saw that movie. It sucked.
 

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