Unfortunately far too many children just want their parents' money when they become very old. And inheritances/parental care create far more bad blood between siblings than most people realize.

I certainly would not say that it is a given that your children will be looking out for your interests! And even if they are, what makes you think they will be competent to do so?

Well said.

And to your last point, I suspect there is a strong correlation between the parents wealth, the number of children (competitors), and the frequency of visits. If there are two siblings both worried about being cut out of the will of a very rich parent...that parent will get a lot of visits.

I plan to address this by letting a couple of charities know that they are my beneficiaries. They can fight it out to keep me entertained and socially engaged...

Not true. Replacement rate in the modern world is about 2.1 children per set of parents. Having more than that is contributing to the ultimate destruction of the planet through over population. If you have three and more than 10% of your friends have more than 2, you're part of the problem. That's math.

You also need to account for the time off you will be taking ( more than likely unpaid) after you have the baby. I have 3 children (5 , 3 and 23months) and I took only 8 weeks off with each. Each child you have is cheaper because you will have a lot of the equipment and clothes ( if all the kids are the same sex, luckily mine were all girls born around the same season).

That is an interesting point stylestar86. Welcome to the boards. In our family my wife's intention was never to work outside of the home. My job more than supports our lifestyle comfortably. So for us this was a non-issue. Our intent was to always expand our family tree with my wife as the primary care giver. I realize for many families dual income is important, expected, and/or essential to make ends meet...

I'm not sure how responsible it is for parents to just throw their kids into day care or employee the services of a full-time nanny. But that is a discussion for another thread I'm sure.



Actually the replacement rate for industrialized countries falls below the 2.0 replacement rate mark – especially in Europe according to Total Fertility Rate estimate of 2011 by the U.S. CIA. That can be dangerous to future economies unless they rely on immigration. Many in the “modern world” have this idea that 1 or 2 children is a responsible number to have. However, I think it would be better to have a growing population than a shrinking population – especially when you consider the Baby Boomer generation. Replacing Boomers in the work-force is going to be rough. Supporting retirement for Boomers is going to be rougher.

Here’s a sample of Industrialised countries in Eruope:

Austria -- 1.41 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Germany -- 1.41 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Greece -- 1.39 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Italy -- 1.4 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Netherlands -- 1.78 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Portugal -- 1.51 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Spain -- 1.48 children born/woman (2011 est.)
United Kingdom -- 1.91 children born/woman (2011 est.)

European Exceptions:
France -- 2.08 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Ireland -- 2.01 children born/woman (2011 est.)

Also some Asian industrialized countries for example:

South Korea -- 1.23 children born/woman (2011 est.)
Japan -- 1.39 children born/woman (2011 est.)

What is scary is we’re barely above 2.0 here in the U.S. And with the difficult economy the way it is there is a trend for the figure to be reduced as people seek to conserve resources.

United States -- 2.06 children born/woman (2011 est.)

Concerning:
India -- 2.58 children born/woman (2011 est.)

See: https://www.cia.gov/library/publication ... /2127.html

Okay so what you're saying is perhaps we should advocate some kind of birth control limiting children to 2 per household? Or perhaps to help things further we should just adopt the 1 child policy like China in the U.S.? Curious as to what you think the solution is.

Don’t even get me started on the birth rate of people in the U.S. with low income who (among other things) avoid marriage for government assistance and tax purposes.

edit: to add India and bold countries.

I'm not sure about most children but in our family we're not concerned about inheritance from our parents. Pointedly because they don't particularly have much. Even if they did have a huge fortune it really depends on the family. It is understood by us sibblings it will be a joint responsibility to care for them. I really think it depends on how you are brought up.

Perhaps we're just strange.

To what end, though?

I've never understood those who advocated unmitigated expansion of the world's population. Surely you realize that even simple math dictates it cannot grow forever, right? There is only a finite amount of dry land on this planet, so what are we to do? Keep multiplying and multiplying until we're all standing shoulder to shoulder?

Constant expansion of the population is no more sustainable than a shrinking population. In my opinion, there are already too many people on the planet, and a period of population contraction would actually be a good thing.

We're already seeing the impact of unrestrained population growth. It's why food prices have skyrocketed in the past few decades. It's why fuel and energy costs have grown in excess of inflation. It's why the environment is stretched to its limit, straining to accommodate all this CO2 being produced by our cars, our factories, ourselves.

If you have just one kid, do you have any idea how much freshwater that kid is going to consume throughout their lifetime? And I'm not just talking about what they'll drink. I'm talking about the showers they'll take, the millions of gallons of water required to grow all the beef they'll eat (not to mention irrigate the crops of hay to feed said cattle, in addition to the produce that the kid will himself consume), the water used in industrial processes creating all the products and vehicles that kid is going to consume... every individual person has a tremendous detrimental impact on this planet.

I personally believe I'm doing this planet/mankind a favor by not adding to the problem. Many demographers believe we're already well past the point of a sustainable population size. I believe this planet needs less people, not more.

Sure, it'll mean a few rich Baby Boomers might not get Social Security checks as fat as they were expecting. That seems like a terrible reason to continue pillaging this planet at an ever faster rate, in my opinion.

Baby Boomers have worked hard and paid into Social Security for their lifetime. The strain on the economy this will cause to the next generations is... Daunting yet unmeasurable at best. But having less people at least in the U.S. to work and pay for this huge retirement load just doesn't make sense to me. World-wide population - that is a whole other issue that needs addressing.

I ask again:



By the way intersting perspective considering:

Canada 1.59 children born/woman (2011 est.)

I would say more Canadians agree with you than disagree it seems.

Can you start your own thread for this and stop derailing every thread that mentions children?

Lol.

Wait a sec ... I'm in a thread with Eagle, and I'm the one being accused of derailing the topic??? I'm so ashamed!

I was thinking the same thing... Guess I'm not the only one lol. Hilarious.

Absolutely. We owe Baby Boomers a deep debt of gratitude. After all, they built this country.

They just forgot to pay for it.

Now they want us to not only pick up the tab for all the expensive program spending and infrastructure initiatives they pioneered, but they want us to do so while keeping them in the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed. Oh, and we'll have to do it with less income, since they have either outsourced our jobs overseas, or have declined to increase our real wages to keep up with inflation.

I'm sorry, but Boomers caused this mess. They should have to share the pain in fixing it. Watching their phony home equity evaporate was a nice start (although all the bailouts and "loan modifications" were a little shamlessly self-serving), but there's a long way to go to eliminate the deficit.



Right. But unless the structural shortcomings of the program's financing are addressed, aren't you just "kicking the can down the road?" Won't the problem be even worse when Generation X starts receiving their SS cheques? What to do then? Increase the population even further?

It's clearly unsustainable. We need to fundamentally shift the paradigm for retirement funding to stop relying on an unsustainable model of perpetual population growth.



It's a start! Although, I doubt they're abstaining from having kids out of global altruistic motives, but rather through simple desperation (financial reality of stagnant wages and skyrocketing expenses) or prolonged adolescence (the realization that "fun" living doesn't have to end at 25 with kids. Kids are optional. Live the life YOU want, not what your relatives "expect" from you).

That's fine. I won't quibble over minor details like that. It really comes down to how you count - women only, women of childbearing age, etc. etc. It sure ain't 3 or more.



No. Once again, it's about math. Take GDP and divide by population. If the denominator is growing faster than the numerator the country is getting poorer. Since it takes at least 20 years for a human to become net productive, a high birth rate is a drag on the economy. That is not so true in agrarian societies so a high birth rate made sense even in the US as recently as 100 years ago. Now though, it is bad.



Note how nearly every other developed country keeps their birth rate low. We are the exception in a bad way.


I'm not saying anything of the sort. I think the solution is for everyone to limit their issue to replacement rate or slightly lower. That means a maximum of 2 kids. You are on your honor to control that yourself. I'm not one of those people that wants to regulate what people do in their own bedrooms.

Very true about the responsibility. I was actually sad about the home equity. Lots of people lost their shirts on that. Of course I’ve been saying for years that it [housing bubble] wasn’t sustainable to friends and family. Which is why we’ve invested money in other things and will purchase a home cash while some of them are still paying off their [upside down] loans.



I completely agree actually. Social Security is a big issue. When a guy who was “retired” at 49 came in at a retail store I worked at when I was younger in a convertible vehicle and was making $4000 a month from social security I knew something was wrong with the whole system. Oh and he put the TV, surround sound, and furniture all on credit to boot...

Regarding SS what would be the best, logical thing to do? What are the options you would suggest?



Kids are optional. This is true. The evidence of this is Planned Parenthood’s success and the amount of orphans out there. Also, people who can’t keep it in their pants if you pardon the saying. And finally single women who have various (3-10?) children all through different partners. Irresponsible people acting irresponsibly.

Personally I’ve always wanted to have kids independent of what my relatives expected of me. I just chose to start doing that closer to 30. People that have kids can still have fun I believe. It is just a personal choice.