Population growth... just barely

Why do we have children? The potentially valid reasons are numerous enough:
• Avoid biological and cultural extinction;
• Produce new workers and new taxpayers;
• Justify the existence of schools;
• Support us in our old age.

Yet, a growing minority of people are challenging what used to be seen as the reproduction imperative. Some just plain don’t like children. Others are choosing to be childless, or rather child-free, for other reasons:
• Human extinction will save the environment;
• Having children ties you down;
• Having children is expensive;
• Having children limits a woman’s career possibilities;
• Children put a strain on a marriage;
• Parenthood is a calling, and we don’t hear it.

Indeed, a growing number of child-free people seem to think that parents are the ones who are selfish. They have these children and then simply expect the child-free to pick up the slack at work. Some say given the many unwanted children in the world, true selflessness would be shown through avoiding procreation and choosing adoption instead. In any case, those without children don’t see why their tax money should be used to subsidise situations into which parents, for the most part, entered freely.

Why there should be such resentment is a mystery to me. Do the child-free subsidise the breeders? Perhaps, but I hardly think they are ill used by that. The people who don’t have children save over 200,000 dollars over 18 years and are spared various other costs related to child raising such as sports programs, school activity fees, school supplies costs, larger clothing for each year of growth, summer camp costs, etc.

Some would say the parents who clamour for relief made the wrong choice when they became parents. I prefer to think the parents aren’t properly supported for the choices they made that benefit society as whole.

Then again, I’m a parent. What else would you expect me to say?