{"product":{"product_id":"0465028616","title":"Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids","price":"15.29","image_url":"https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51Mayk-0P7L._SL500_.jpg","url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465028616"},"comments":[{"body":"[You'd be surprised](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;qid=1541769814\u0026amp;sr=8-1\u0026amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65\u0026amp;keywords=selfish+reasons+to+have+more+kids)\r\n\r\n\u0026gt;In Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, contrarian economist Bryan Caplan argues that we've needlessly turned parenting into an unpleasant chore, and don't know the real plusses and minuses of having kids. Parents today spend more time investing in their kids than ever, but twin and adoption research shows that upbringing is much less important than we imagine, especially in the long-run. Kids aren't like clay that parents mold for life; they're more like flexible plastic that pops back to its original shape once you relax your grip. These revelations are wonderful news for anyone with kids. Being a great parent is less work and more fun than you think—so instead of struggling to change your children, you can safely relax and enjoy your journey together. Raise your children in the way that feels right for you; they'll still probably turn out just fine. Indeed, as Caplan strikingly argues, modern parents should have more kids. Parents who endure needless toil and sacrifice are overcharging themselves for every child. Once you escape the drudgery and worry that other parents take for granted, bringing another child into the world becomes a much better deal. You might want to stock up","subreddit_name":"Futurology","author":"Peetrius"},{"body":"I strongly suspect the argument that \"having children increases your carbon footprint\" is just totally specious.  Bringing one less person into the world doesn't decrease your carbon footprint, it decreases *the number of people*.  The carbon footprint in question *isn't your carbon footprint*, it's *your child's carbon footprint*.\r\n\r\nSimilar reasoning concludes that one way to decrease your carbon footprint is to just murder more people.  In fact, if you murder more than one very young child, you've just offset yourself *plus* some number of your friends!\r\n\r\nOf course there are *other* reasons to not murder people, and it would be silly to not take those into account!  Likewise, there are many good reasons to have children, and so it would be silly to not take those into account also. If you want to think very seriously about those, I recommend [Bryan Caplan's book on the subject](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616).","subreddit_name":"slatestarcodex","author":"naraburns"},{"body":"If you cannot see the benefit of having rich kids who love you while you’re old, you’re fucking retarded. That’s how society functioned before everyone turned into a bitch for the government. There is nothing inherently different about the way savings and interests works in the third world than they do in the first world. Before the welfare state, people stuck together in larger families and had a more cohesive family structure. Here in America, people either had large families or they join fraternal societies like the Freemasons or some fraternity before the government had charity. \r\n\r\n\r\n\u0026gt;opportunity cost \r\n\r\nYea you’re over assessing the opportunity cost. The fact is children aren’t the delicate retarded amoeba that people think they are and children largely raise themselves, as long as parents can keep them out of harms way. This is not my opinion, [theres research](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616/ref=nodl_) that supports this. Parents who realize that children aren’t cattle and learn how to use economies of scale are winning at life and also at the genetic lottery.\r\n\r\n\r\n\u0026gt;stop paying welfare\r\n\r\n\r\nStopping paying welfare doesn’t make rich people breed faster, but it stops the overbreeding of leeches. Two separate issues. You need both for a society in equilibrium.","subreddit_name":"PoliticalCompassMemes","author":"Imbeingserious-yo"},{"body":"I disagree, too. Previous generations never worried about this much doting on their kids, and they still produced geniuses and stars. It's a recent phenomenon.\r\n\r\nThe evidence suggests you've done most of your work before the baby is even born, by passing on your genes. Most of the influence on your children will come from their friends, teachers, and the rest of their environment that isn't their parents. Here's a nice [book](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616) on the subject.","subreddit_name":"programming","author":"therealjohnfreeman"},{"body":"Read Bryan Caplan's \"Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids\". I have 2 and would never go back to having just 1. \r\n\r\nYou might get the wrong impression if you lurk in parenting forums, because it draws the unhappy parents out of the shadows looking for advice. 99.99% of parents [citation needed] who waffle about having \"one more\" kid are happy with their choice.\r\n\r\nhttps://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616#:~:text=In%20Selfish%20Reasons%20to%20Have,and%20minuses%20of%20having%20kids.","subreddit_name":"Parenting","author":"sschow"},{"body":"If you believe these studies, you quickly end up with the idea that literally nothing matters when it comes to parenting.\r\n\r\n[This book](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616) documents this pretty thoroughly. For one example, Korean orphans from the Korean war was adopted into families in Minnesota ***randomly***. When researchers checked up on how those kids did decades later, they found zero correlation between various metrics and the schools that the kids attended. Rich public, poor public, private, catholic, all the same outcomes.\r\n\r\nThe list of studies that the book names is long and exhaustive, all driving to the same conclusion: for biological children, your kids will resemble you; what you do largely doesn't matter. For adopted children, you will almost certainly have a kid with somewhat random stats. What you do still won't matter.\r\n\r\nIf you are a parent that cares about academics, your kids will care about academics. Because, well, your kids will resemble you.","subreddit_name":"fatFIRE","author":"lee1026"},{"body":"“We've needlessly turned parenting into an unpleasant chore. Parents invest more time and money in their kids than ever, but the shocking lesson of twin and adoption research is that upbringing is much less important than genetics in the long run. These revelations have surprising implications for how we parent and how we spend time with our kids. The big lesson: Mold your kids less and enjoy your life more. Your kids will still turn out fine.”\r\n\r\nhttps://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616/","subreddit_name":"daddit","author":"queensnyatty"},{"body":"\u0026gt; So, on your definition, should we have discussions about how to improve human child rearing?\r\n\r\nOnly because when I write \"become malevolent\", you read \"display traits I would call malevolence\".\r\n\r\n\u0026gt; So, on your definition, should we have discussions about how to improve human child rearing?\r\n\r\nI doubt it would be any more fruitful than the one we're having now, but if you're interested, you can read [this book](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616)","subreddit_name":"Futurology","author":"caverts"},{"body":"\u0026gt; I also dearly wish there were a way to encourage wealthy and educated people to *fucking reproduce*\r\n\r\nCutting education is a promising start.  Not only does school directly delay family formation, but the whole premise of education is that successful people are made through an expensive, arduous training process, when all the evidence shows that genes are more important.\r\n\r\nYou can't pay a 30-year-old MA enough to settle down and have kids in the next few years, when she's just been through 25 years of school, and been brainwashed into thinking that she has to put her kids through the same, as well as act as their personal servant for decades in order to instill the \"love of learning\" responsible for her own success (because it definitely wasn't genetic!).  You *especially* can't pay people with high earning potential enough to do this.\r\n\r\nWe should reassure people that their children will turn out similar to themselves, due to genetics, *with no special effort on their part*.  See Bryan Caplan's [*Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids*](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8\u0026amp;qid=1551119675\u0026amp;sr=8-1\u0026amp;keywords=selfish+reasons+to+have+more+kids).  And while you're agreeing with Bryan Caplan, you might also want to check out [his case for open borders](http://www.econlib.org/archives/2013/11/let_anyone_take.html), especially [the part focusing on IQ heritability](https://www.econlib.org/archives/2017/09/the_wonder_of_i.html).","subreddit_name":"TheMotte","author":"nullshun"},{"body":"https://www.amazon.ca/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls\u0026amp;dplnkId=03d6dfd1-b945-46be-a505-c3af4ed9ca89\r\n\r\nThis book is decent.. I won't say it totally resonated but there were a few interesting points.","subreddit_name":"Shouldihaveanother","author":"Comprehensive-Ad7538"},{"body":"This book might interest you: [Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616) by Bryan Caplan who you might recognize as an economist. Not sure if mod2 would agree with the implications.","subreddit_name":"Bogleheads","author":"GimmeFood_Please"},{"body":"\u0026gt;\tmore time to help others\r\n\r\nNot quite: https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616","subreddit_name":"slatestarcodex","author":"adiabatic"},{"body":"A good time to plug one of my favorite parenting books: *[Selfish Reasons to have More Kids by Bryan Caplan](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616/ref=nodl_)*","subreddit_name":"slatestarcodex","author":"ElbieLG"},{"body":"Here's a data scientist's take on it: Kids are a sacrifice. Studies consistently show that, statistically, parenthood decreases self-assessed measures of \"quality of life\" and \"life satisfaction.\" In other words, people without kids have more fun.\r\n\r\nHowever, this difference is not really all that big. It's what we call \"practically insignificant\", even though it's \"statistically significant.\" Meaning that other things that affect life-satisfaction far outweigh the effect of having children.\r\n\r\nBUT, the reverse is true for ***grandparents***. Grandparents have *massive* increases in life-satisfaction and quality-of-life over their childless peers. This *far outweighs* any decrease caused by parenting.\r\n\r\nThat's why I say kids are an investment. They're not easy — although every year you get better at it and they get better too. But the long-term benefits are *incredible*.\r\n\r\nI'll also **shout from the rooftops** that modern parents make their own lives harder than they need to be. Good research shows convincingly that sports or immersion or ballet or any of these other \"tiger mom\" things — they don't really matter! Study after study shows that adults turn out equally well no matter what \"extracurriculars\" they did as children. And this leveling starts as early as age 12. \r\n\r\nThe *only* thing that makes a clear positive difference in former children's life outcomes is *whether they felt their parents loved them.*\r\n\r\nSo don't make your life harder than it needs to be! If your kid doesn't want to do soccer or dance, then great! That means you can spend more time *together* and less time figuring out schedules.\r\n\r\nI *highly recommend* the book *[Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616)* for information about what research by *actual scientists* shows about having fun with your kids.\r\n\r\nAnd, finally, remember that when you get to the judgment, you have to choose whether to have eternal children or not. Are you going to take it easy in the Terrestrial or Telestial worlds? Or will you want to face the hardship of parenthood like Father does?\r\n\r\nThe choice you make *today* is **training** you to make a choice, one way or the other, *then*.","subreddit_name":"latterdaysaints","author":"nofreetouchies2"},{"body":"\u0026gt; children are a time sink and are not how I wished to spend my time\r\n\r\nHave you read Kaplan’s [Selfish reasons to have more kids](https://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Reasons-Have-More-Kids/dp/0465028616)?","subreddit_name":"TheMotte","author":"ohio_redditor"}]}