But TWO paychecks may be now needed only because it has become normal and economics have adjusted over time that what once was supported by one now requires two because two is available.
Or in other words, if we never really went to the dual income earners per household we would be doing with one paycheck what now is done with two.
If so then readjusting to one paycheck per household in a nationwide sense should over time be as sufficient for expenses as two are now.
My mom came from a family like this, and when she grew up and moved out, she contributed when she could, but lots of times she spent the money on herself or what she wanted to. This earned her severe approbation from the family. To this day they talk about how so-and-so worked and slaved to bring all of her family over from India, and how my mom was “too cheap” to do the same.
These safety nets can really drag you down. The auntie that brought her whole family here now expects them to help with her retirement, and I don’t think they are going to! She worked like a dog to do this but she gets nothing in return.
Last thing we need is more people.
There are criticisms of Western interpersonal relationships from all over the political spectrum: the atomization of society, the destruction of the extended family, single mothers using the government as their sugar daddy, etc. The idea that families should stick together and help each other out blew up a long time ago, through a combination of shifting cultural mores regarding independence and being self-made and stark economic reality. Not only do people move out when they’re 18, they’re dying to get out. Schools and jobs are hundreds of miles away, so they move to another state, maybe even another country.
Even if I was inclined to agree with you that dual household incomes are the cause of “financial struggling” rather than the effect, what couple is going to volunteer to be the guinea pigs to test your hypothesis. “Come on, honey. Let’s have three more kids. Mr. Man will surely have sympathy on us and increase my wages. It’ll work, I promise!”
If you look at the comments at the bottom of that article, a lot of people seem to be blaming iPads and summer vacations for why people choose to keep families small. People are being selfish for putting material desire above the desire to have children. What bullshit this is. If the median income is $54K and most couples are having 2, maybe 3 children, then there aren’t a whole lot of families blowing all their money on Disney resorts. But even if this was the case (that we’re just a bunch of materialistic so-and-sos), how do you fix something like this without trampling all over individual liberty and the precious free market that conservatives worship more than anything else? Do you ban Wal-Mart from advertising their low, low prices? Tell Apple to stop producing those cool gadgets? Fine people who go to Disney World too often?
Our last president urged us to show our optimism and patriotism by spending more. We are constantly told by conservative politicians that job creators (businesses) need “our” help and support. I know it’s not necessarily the same conservatives who are now scolding us for being so materialistic and selfish, but I certainly don’t hear conservatives like the writer of that piece telling industrialist types like Donald Trump or Mitt Romney to STFU.
As a Latino who spent most of my child hood in a majority black low income neighborhood:
Many of the families that I know that require government assistance are large families and they require government assistance BECAUSE they are large families. To quote Kanye West:
I never understood planned parenthood
Cause I never met nobody planned to be a parent in the hood
Which is to say that these families were formed due to people in already economically unstable families have kids they didn’t prepare to have (read: accidents) I literally can not imagine a larger family being beneficial in reducing “big government.” Whats more likely to happen is you receive more government aid (as big families are wont to do). This rings true, at least for me, since many of the people I know that are from low income neighborhoods have 3-4 siblings. The only way for big families would be bad for “big government” is if you were already economically stable to begin with, or if you intend to take your army of genetic offspring and overthrow the government.
That is just my perspective on Latino and black families however.
The author of that article is probably from a different background (white and upper middle class)
It would make sense to me that smaller families have less cost to cover and would therefore be more economically stable and not require as much (or any) government assistance. You may not have any siblings/aunts/uncles to lean on if you hit hard times, but hard times will hit you so much harder if you have more mouths to feed.
As a silly side note my grandfather had eight brothers and sister (not sure of the ratio). I know everyone single one of them had kids. My grandfather had 4 sons and 4 daughters, all of whom went on to have 2-3 kids each. Went to a family reunion a while back and I literally could not count all the family members I have when including my grandfathers brothers and sisters kids and their kids. Dating someone from the same ethnicity and from the same town has a chance of accidental incest
Hey, let’s back right up. What exactly is wrong with iPads and summer vacations? This seems like the old adage of “Life isn’t fun, suffer, bitches”.
What if they are taking their kids on the summer vacations? And buying them ipads? Hell, I always thought if I had a kid, I’d only have one, so I could give her a lot more. But then I am an only child so I don’t look upon not having siblings as some kind of anathema.
I’m pretty sure we ought to be drawing a line somewhere. Somewhere short of the Duggars, that is.
It’s also self-contradictory. You work at Disney World? You manage an Apple store? Better not have kids at all, much less have a large family, because you’re gonna be out on the street when people start LivingRight[tm]!
What does “draw a line” mean in this context?
Did they adopt any of their kids? If so, I can imagine a line. But otherwise… no.
AFAIK they just kept a-fuckin’. Why does that make a difference?
Because we, as a society, should make sure adoptions take place in families that are going to be good for the child. OTOH, forcing an abortion on a woman you think already has enough kids is a bit… authoritarian, nyet?
If she’s got one or two or five, sure. After fifteen, it stops seeming like a principled objection and more like a suicide pact.
My dad comes from a big family. He was the youngest of six kids, born and raised in a small Rust Belt town. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone else, especially if you’re black. I swear every time I go back to that place, I’m introduced to a new person who turns out to be a distant cousin.
So I have a lot of aunts and cousins. But my father “escaped” and moved hundreds of miles away shortly after he graduated college, which means his children–my siblings and me–didn’t grow up knowing those folks too well. Thanksgiving dinner was almost always just the immediate family, plus friends*. We’d visit the extended fam during the summer.
I really don’t think I missed that much. Granted, I’m not a sentimental person, and it’s impossible to mourn something you never had. But I’m glad my father moved away from that poor, provincial, racially segregated town. He was able to redefine himself by getting away from no-good childhood pals, and he didn’t have excessive family obligations (like mentally ill, dysfunctional siblings) blocking his path. I know he felt guilty about escaping, especially after my grandmother died. But I think he knows deep down that he made the best decision for the family he brought into this world.
*Why not encourage people to form their own “private safety nets” with both family AND friends? I can totally get behind making use of pre-existing human resources to get through stormy times. Not so much with creating more and hoping for the best.
A lazy, nonsensical argument worthy only of the crusted fecal matter left over from my morning shit.
I’d like to see somewhat higher fertility rates among European women (and certain subgroups in America), but I don’t really think that has anything to do with the size of government or the welfare state. I don’t notice a tight correlation between how economically left/right a country is and their fertility.
There’s really only one developed/wealthy country with a high birth rate (not counting some small island states, Gulf monarchies etc.) and that’s Israel. And the high birth rates there are driven mostly by the Haredim, who…wait for it…get large welfare checks from the government. If Israel had less of a welfare state, I’m betting they would also have a lower fertility rate.
Larger families mean, per both Malthus and obvious common sense, higher birth rates, more hunger, more scarcity, more conflict, more violent crime, more war, more famine, and possibly worse plagues.
But most excitingly for the economic elitists of the right wing, it means more desperate potential employees, and a lower cost of man-hours of labor.
Why that’s worth the environmental degradation to a self-proclaimed conservative, well, you’ll have to ask him.
Marxists used to advocate for large families, or at least Mao did, on the theory that workers create wealth. You see what population explosion did to China. They ended up with forced abortions, when it turned out that more human workers does not translate to more rainfall, more productivity per acre of arable land, or more fish in the sea.
This is Great Debates, not IMHO. If you cannot coherently put together an argument that backs your opinion, stay out of the thread.
Or, in other words, cite?
The average cost of raising a child is $245,000.
Couples with numerous children can ill afford this cost. The difference gets passed onto the welfare state.
So, in reality, larger families contribute to government largesse. A middle-class family can barely afford to raise 2 children. Lower-class families with 3, 4, 5, or more children almost certainly will require government assistance.
I’m sorry I had to get off the john to explain the absurdity and idiocy of this debate.
A great point stepping past the correlation and looking at possible interrelated causality. Decisions get made on both sides.
I’d also attack his point that simply minimizing the effectiveness of the private security net does not mean the same level of support needs to come from the government. That security net is a form of insurance against personal financial risk. There’s a third option he omits - self insuring by saving. Having fewer kids both decreases the required spending for minimum sustenance if things go bad, and increases the ability to save to cover shortfalls. It’s easier to save and savings go further. Somehow I don’t think the authors take was so much making the case for personal responsibility no matter the size of family. It seems more like making a case for a pre-determined conclusion.