Consider This Before You Have Kids

People’s reasons for having kids vary. Some have kids because ‘it’s what you do’ – after college, you build your career, get married, and start a family. Others do it because they like kids; because kids are cute, and raising them would be fun. Then there are people who hope their kids will take care of them in old age; they see their kids as an ‘insurance plan’. Some people fail to live their dream and want to experience it vicariously through their kids.

These reasons range from naive to immoral. You shouldn’t have kids because they’re ‘cute’ or ‘fun’. You’ll be disappointed anyway: changing diapers isn’t cute. Waking up in the middle of the night to a screaming baby isn’t fun. Pushing a sense of financial duty onto one’s kids is not only immoral but virtually guaranteed to wreck the parent-child relationship: it can make the child “feel like … livestock.” People who aren’t financially stable enough to take care of themselves for the rest of their lives are in no position to have children anyway.

A child cannot possibly have any obligations whatsoever toward his parents simply for being their child. After all, it was exclusively their decision to bring him into this world: the child could not possibly have had a say in that. Obligations are only moral when they are taken on voluntarily. Just because parents fulfill their obligations toward their child (which many don’t even do anyway) doesn’t mean the child then owes them anything. Dave Ramsey has said good things on this topic:

I think there’s only one valid reason to have a child. If the thought of a lifelong obligation to help your child – by his own lights, as Lulie Tanett from Taking Children Seriously (TCS) has put it – only then should you become a parent. And on top of that, there are several prerequisites.

The part “by his own lights” is crucial because most parents still think that children need to be molded into people, against their will if necessary, and that anything else is neglect. This false dichotomy between authoritarianism and neglect is a recipe for disaster. It is, in fact, possible and desirable to create what TCS calls common preferences with one’s children, and to live together happily and rationally.

But common-preference finding is hard. It’s hard enough to do on your own, and it gets exponentially harder the more people are involved. Now imagine finding common preferences with someone who cannot yet speak! Many parents complain about their difficulties, and while some of these complaints are for social approval, others are valid. Parenting is hard. But there are ways to prepare.

TCS is based on Karl Popper’s epistemology, which emphasizes the importance of piecemeal improvement over revolutionary changes. If the thought of taking on that lifelong obligation to help your child by his own lights excites you, here are some piecemeal, low-risk, reversible ways to practice before becoming a parent. First, you could try taking care of a plant. Of course, children aren’t like plants – bear with me here. Owning a plant requires some small amount of responsibility. You might learn some things about yourself. Maybe you find that having to routinely water the plant gets in the way of other things you’d rather do. Maybe you learn that you don’t really care if the plant lives or dies. That’s okay! It’s no big deal if a plant dies. You still have an easy way out if you learn that the decision to have a plant was a mistake. And if the responsibility of caring for a plant overwhelms you, you’re definitely not ready to be a parent. And that’s okay, too.

If you do enjoy taking care of the plant, see how long you make it. Do you still enjoy it after a month, three months, etc? If you do, raise the stakes a bit: get a goldfish. A goldfish is more demanding than a plant. It’s a bigger responsibility. It needs to be fed every day, and if it dies, that’s a bigger deal. See if you can take care of both the plant and the goldfish at the same time. And don’t just keep them alive, make sure they flourish. If you find yourself daydreaming about rushing home from work so you can finally feed your goldfish and water your plant, that’s a great sign you genuinely enjoy being a caretaker.

If some of these steps are too big, there are always regressions: try taking care of two plants at the same time before getting a pet. Try petsitting before getting a pet of your own. And so on. A hamster is a bigger responsibility than a goldfish. A cat is more responsibility still, but more independent than a dog.

Imagine you gradually work up to owning a cat, but it gets sick and you have to take it to the vet. That can cost a lot of money. Are you prepared to pay for that? Maybe you find out about a chronic condition that will cost $10k/year to manage. Are you prepared to foot that kind of bill? If not, you can give the cat up for adoption. What a relief! To be sure, that can still be a difficult, even traumatic decision, but it’s much more manageable than having a kid you cannot take care of. At least you can change course and find something else to do with your life.

I’ve known people who had no experience owning pets, who were surprised when they felt overwhelmed taking care of the dog they just got. But the emotional attachment was too strong to give it up for adoption, so the mistake was entrenched. The dog became a burden, and the owner was not prepared to help it by its own lights.

If you do find that you love taking care of plants and pets, maybe you really would enjoy having children. Try babysitting for an evening. Nobody, not even you, can predict what that will be like. But if you learn that you don’t like it, you can just decide not to babysit again. It’s easy! If you love it, try babysitting for a whole weekend, changing diapers and all. Slowly increase the difficulty and responsibility.

Again, children are not at all like pets or plants. Dog-training methods not only don’t work on children but are immoral. The purpose of these progressions is to help you learn about yourself, take on small responsibilities, make reversible mistakes, and practice before you take on a lifelong obligation. Such progressions even work after you have your first child: don’t have your second child for as long as you still struggle taking care of the first. Once you’ve mastered that, you’re ready for the second child.

In short, have children only if the thought of a lifelong obligation to help them by their own lights excites you. If it does, there’s a gradual path toward parenting. You don’t need to jump in the deep end. Make piecemeal, reversible decisions until you’re ready.