Why bother having kids?
Are Pope Francis and Elon Musk right?
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Two high-profile figures have recently urged people (somewhat controversially) to have kids. The most famous came at the beginning of January, when Pope Francis argued that the “denial of fatherhood or motherhood diminishes us, it takes away our humanity.” He went on to say that if people don’t have kids “civilization becomes aged” and “our homeland suffers, as it does not have children.”
In that same vein, Elon Musk1 has repeatedly advocated for having kids, arguing among other things that “if people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble.”
I saw a lot of people mocking and criticizing these comments, but I think they raise good questions: Should people have kids? Is there a reason to follow the advice of Pope Francis and Musk on this?
To that end, I wanted to explore some of the reasons people, especially myself, choose to have kids in the first place2. As usual, this is not me telling everyone to have kids. Do whatever you want. Also, I know there are many people who for a variety of reasons can’t have kids. That’s a topic that falls beyond the scope of this particular post. What I’m talking about here is the crossroads some people reach — and why I made the decision I did.
Having kids for the greater good
What I find perplexing about the arguments from both Pope Francis and Elon Musk is that they’re both basically saying people should have kids for the greater good. Pope Francis’ “our homeland suffers, as it does not have children” sounds weird, but I believe he’s making what I’ll call the Social Security argument. In the US, Social Security provides money to the elderly. But the system only works if there are more workers paying in than people drawing money out. You need gradual population growth, and the economy generally is structured this way3.
Musk seems to be making a similar argument in his most recent twitter thread, with the idea being that there will be dire outcomes if the population starts shrinking a lot.
There’s evidence to support this idea (eg Detroit), but setting aside the legitimacy of the argument itself, I find the idea that people should have kids for the greater good pretty unpersuasive. Who is going to have kids to save Social Security (or, the economy generally)? No one.
Conclusion: I did not have kids to benefit the greater good, society, or the US Social Security program.
Having kids because they lead to happiness
So if the greater good isn’t a compelling reason to have kids, what is?
One idea that comes up a lot is happiness, and specifically the question of whether or not kids make people happy. If kids do in fact make people happier, that’d be a compelling reason to procreate — most people would like to be happier, and if there’s something they could do to achieve more happiness they’d probably to do it.
There’s a vast amount of research on this topic, and the results are complex and mixed. I’d say my own happiness has probably seen a net increase thanks to my kids, but that is very much not the case for everyone researchers have studied. And the takeaway is that the “kids lead to happiness” argument is not a slam dunk.
My other problem with this line of thinking is that, as I’ve written previously, I see the pursuit of happiness as a fool’s errand. Happiness is a collateral benefit that comes from the pursuit of other things.
Conclusion: My kids make me happy from time to time, but I didn’t chose to become a parent because I thought in advance that doing so would make me happier.
Having kids as an investment in the future
Here’s an argument I find compelling. The gist is that there are practical benefits to having a family and that kids expand a family’s network. For example, in Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, author Karl Pillemer talks about how after his daughters got married he gained access to a network of people who could advise him on which car to buy and which wines to choose. And those in-laws in turn gained access to a network of people that included, among other specialists, a doctor.
Thus, through my daughter’s husbands, I have inherited a large network of individuals whom I may not know well but can access through the family linkages.
Such a reservoir of potential social support is extremely valuable. It even has a name: “social capital.” That term refers to networks of trusted individuals who can be called upon in times of need. These social ties provide a safety net, when available for information and advice if and when it is needed. Possessing social capital, in the form of people we see as friendly, supportive, and there for us if required — even if we are not in touch often — makes us feel more at home in the world. For example, if I ever doubted that the Yankees are far superior to the Red Sox, I could call Michael’s father, Frank, and he would convince me in a few minutes.
By adding family, I have gained access to resources that I never would have had otherwise. These benefits are precisely what is lost in a family rift4.
Families are, in other words, useful.
I’ve seen this first hand. My wife and I first met while we were in college, hundreds of miles away from both our families. But I lucked out; my wife and I have received a vast treasure of companionship, knowledge and various other kinds of support from my father- and mother-in-law. I enjoy our long debates as much as I do hanging out with my own family. Multiple members of my wife’s family have helped us on home remodels, some of them quite substantially so. My mother- and father-in-law are coming back to our house soon to help as our third kid is born. And I’m only skimming the surface.
Admittedly, this support has mostly flowed one way at this point. If someone were to ask me, why get married?, I’d point to my own experience and note how much richer life can be when you have amazing in-laws5. But presumably the support will flow the other way as well. When my in-laws need us, hopefully we’ll be there to assist.
Additionally, my parents and my in-laws have also both helped each other, including by hosting each other for not insubstantial amounts of time. And it’s that kind of interaction that captures the kids-as-a-network. Not only have the kids (my wife and I in this example) benefited, but our extended families have been able to tap into a network as well.
One more thought on this idea: The practical benefits of having kids get more pronounced in old age. Oxford anthropologist Robin Dunbar has described the “final stage in the human life cycle” as kicking in around a person’s 60s, “when we start to lose friends through death.”
In older age […] we lack the energy and the motivation (and are less mobile as well) to seek and build new friendships. Moreover, the kinds of places where we found friends when we were younger are now no longer quite so appropriate as places to go. We don’t quite know the right codes of behavior for the context, are not even sure how to start a conversation with a stranger any more. So we become less inclined to go out in order to replace old friends6.
Dunbar has done extensive research on this, but even without that research it makes intuitive sense. How many 80-year-olds in senior living homes do you know who are getting visits from friends?
Conclusion: I’m persuaded by the idea that eventually your kids basically are the entirety of your social circle. Having them is an investment in less lonely, more secure elder years7.
Having kids because it’s a part of the human experience
Let me tell you about the first time I tried wine. I was in Siena, Italy, at a charming little restaurant deep in the city’s tangle of medieval streets. I had been to Italy several times before, but because my religious background strongly forbade alcohol, I had never partaken. During this trip to Siena, however, I came to the conclusion that A) to understand a people you have to try to meet them on their own terms and do whatever it is they do, and B) I would like to have as many diverse experiences as I possibly can. I’ll give anything within reason a try, especially if it’s in the service of better understanding someone else’s experience.
How is this related to kids?
As it turns out, having kids is the singular experience that many cultures value, and family relationships are one of the most important parts of civilization. As a group of Harvard and George Mason researchers have written, “kin-based institutions are perhaps the most fundamental of human institutions, and have long represented the primary framework for organizing social life in most societies”8.
Having been fortunate enough to travel a bit, I’ve seen a lot of different living conditions, art forms, architectural styles, historical narratives, and values. But I haven’t been exposed to any historical cultures that didn’t think of having kids as a major part of life’s purpose9. And I tend to think that if something has worked well for a lot of very different people, across very different eras, for many thousands of years, there’s probably some wisdom there.
Conclusion: All of this is to say that if having wine is an essential Italian experience, having kids may be an essential human experience, but with vastly higher stakes. And if I want to partake in the most meaningful human experiences, there is literally nothing more fitting than having a family10.
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I am not much of a fan of Elon Musk. While I do kind of like that he’s a provocateur, I’m not impressed by his tendency to punch down on platforms like Twitter. He lost me, and many other people who follow urban planning, when he attacked well-respected public transit consultant Jarrett Walker — whose platform is vastly smaller than Musk’s. My real beef with Elon Musk, though, is that he seems to fundamentally misunderstand transit, and the projects he is pushing (tunnels for cars), would do little to solve anything.
I have occasionally been asked why I haven’t ever considered adoption. To be honest, the reason is because adoption has been so challenging for the people I know who have done it that it seemed too difficult. And it also seemed like I’d be taking up a space in line that would better go to someone else. Last fall the Atlantic also described a “shortage” of adoptable babies, as well as years of falling adoption numbers.
Another example of this is housing. Most people bank on their homes gradually appreciating, and it’s a big part of many people’s retirement plan. But housing only appreciates if there’s rising demand. If demand falls off a cliff because the population shrinks — as was the case in Detroit and other Rust Belt cities — housing loses value.
Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. Karl Pillemer, 2020. Page 77.
I know not everyone has amazing in-laws, and there is of course the stereotype of the terrible in-law. But that strikes me as an individual failing, not an indictment on the whole concept of extended family. In other words, if your house breaks and needs repairs, you don’t burn it to the ground and abandon the entire concept of houses in general. You figure out what went wrong and try to address it. So too, with in-laws; imperfect in-law relationships mean that those specific examples hold lessons about what doesn’t work, but don’t fundamentally mean you can’t have good in-laws.
Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships. Robin Dunbar. 2021. Page: 147
I think there are a lot of my fellow millennials who are in denial about this. I’ve had conversations with people, and they’ll point to “old” people who are living it up by going on cruises and vacations with their friends. “My friends will be my circle when I’m old,” is something I’ve heard on multiple occasions. But often it turns out these “old” people are in their 60s. What happens over the following years, especially to people who outlive their friends by decades? I think people who put all their eggs in one basket on this issue are making a huge gamble, and nothing I’ve seen suggests it will work.
“The Origins of WEIRD Psychology.” Jonathan Schulz, Duman Bahrami-Rad, Jonathan Beauchamp, and Joseph Henrich. June 22, 2018. Page 3
Just one example: Romans believed that the purpose of marriage was to have children, and Augustus actually legislated rewards for marrying and having children, as well as penalties for not doing so. In that context, infertility became grounds for separation and the first such divorce took place in 230 BC. One of the better-known examples of divorce on the grounds of infertility is that of Octavia, daughter of Emperor Claudius. Octavia married Nero — of fiddle-playing fame — when she was 13, but later fell out of favor and was divorced by age 22 on the grounds that she couldn’t have children. Women divorced on the grounds of infertility had no place in Roman society, and potentially faced a kind of social death. However, that fate could be somewhat avoided if the ever-gossipy Romans suspected the alleged infertility was just a pretense for the husband to move on to someone else. Sources: Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Stephanie Coontz. 2005. Page 78; Children and Childhood in Roman Italy. Beryl Rawson. Page 6; Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome: A Life Course Approach. Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence. Page 86
I want to point out one more time that I’m not writing this to persuade you, dear reader, to have kids. I know many people who have been to Italy and didn’t try the wine for a variety of reasons, including my wife. I respect that. I’ve been that person many times. Instead, I’m trying to articulate the ethic that has guided my own decisions.