Yeah I used to think that until I had a family. In reality it's more like:
1. Taxes are more punishing because you're spending half your disposable income on children, and most of it probably comes from one earner. You can say "don't have children if you can't afford it" all you like, but you wouldn't be alive if nobody had children, so it's quite selfish of anyone to be anti-children.
2. For men performance expectations are the same but now you have to somehow simultaneously be at work and also pick up your children from school at 3pm. Oh and don't forget you have to somehow cover like 80 days of school holidays a year. For women... well you can legislate that being off work for 2 years doesn't matter all you want; in reality it is a major disruption to careers.
3. Childcare is far more expensive than any increased cost I experienced for being single, with the possible exception of not being able to share rent with a partner. But once you have children... rent for a family is more than double rent for a one bed flat.
4. Yeah price me up a skiing holiday for a family of 4. Now do it for a single person (and double it if you like).
The very reason that discounted family tickets exist is that families wouldn't buy any tickets otherwise because they would be too expensive. It's the same reason student discounts exist. It's called price discrimination.
I do agree it's pretty annoying and feels unfair though. The optimum group from a price point of view is really a couple, not a family.
> you wouldn't be alive if nobody had children, so it's quite selfish of anyone to be anti-children.
It gets into philosophical territory, but the default "having a pulse = good" thinking is pretty shortsighted IMO. Life is inherently suffering and no one got a yes/no prompt before being born.
While there are people who wish that "yes" was a "no" instead, they form an exceedingly small portion of the general population. Most people are happy they exist.
For a society it's not philosophical. If it wishes to exist past a few decades then it needs children, simple as that. Therefore societies are (and should) be skewed towards that.
I'll ask this in response: why does society need to exist at all?
Obviously ideas like yours are ingrained into us at a biological level and it logically makes sense if we want to survive as a species... but there is no inherent reason other than "just because" right?
Well yeah, because of our ingrained sense of morality & self-preservation. But we're talking about the policies of society so it's kind of pointless discussing them if you don't accept that society should exist in the first place.
It's fairly irrelevant to the discussion. All societies that choose not to exist also choose for all their policies about (not) reinforcing children to not exist.
Yes, that's just a necessity for the persistence of a society. Otherwise there's no point in even organizing as one. I'm not making a value judgment by the way, just an objective statement. I was also once part of a "DINK" and someone who thought would not have children, I have no qualms with that, but there's just no point in prioritizing that segment.
I think what's more angsty is replies like this. You can't possibly fathom anything other than the default so you fallback to slop like this.
Yes, life can suck and I'm not saying we need to suicide as a species because of that. But, individuals can experience a much larger percentage of suffering than joy. So is it unreasonable to at least consider that possibility rather than going "haha you were brought into this world, suck it up and be happy"?
Dogs are not people. Society does not rely on the continued existence of dogs. Do you see any governments enacting policies to make people have more dogs?
> when is discrimination ok?
When it makes things more moral/fair. Do you object to student discounts? Progressive taxes? You seem to be having a knee-jerk reaction to the word "discrimination". It's also called "price differentiation". Maybe that sounds less bad to you?
1. Taxes are more punishing because you're spending half your disposable income on children, and most of it probably comes from one earner. You can say "don't have children if you can't afford it" all you like, but you wouldn't be alive if nobody had children, so it's quite selfish of anyone to be anti-children.
2. For men performance expectations are the same but now you have to somehow simultaneously be at work and also pick up your children from school at 3pm. Oh and don't forget you have to somehow cover like 80 days of school holidays a year. For women... well you can legislate that being off work for 2 years doesn't matter all you want; in reality it is a major disruption to careers.
3. Childcare is far more expensive than any increased cost I experienced for being single, with the possible exception of not being able to share rent with a partner. But once you have children... rent for a family is more than double rent for a one bed flat.
4. Yeah price me up a skiing holiday for a family of 4. Now do it for a single person (and double it if you like).
The very reason that discounted family tickets exist is that families wouldn't buy any tickets otherwise because they would be too expensive. It's the same reason student discounts exist. It's called price discrimination.
I do agree it's pretty annoying and feels unfair though. The optimum group from a price point of view is really a couple, not a family.