A libertarian case for having more children
Caplan’s case basically boils down to this: Too many Americans are reluctant to have more children because we overestimate the resources (time/money/effort) it takes to raise a happy, well-adjusted child.
Those vocabulary flashcards? Not worth it. Your son hates piano lessons? Don’t put yourself through the pain of forcing him to go. You don’t have time to cook dinner? Get takeout. And perhaps most subversively, if you need a few minutes to compose yourself, don’t be afraid to let Cookie Monster babysit your kids for half an hour…
Most pro-natalist books make the case that having more children is good for all of humanity. And “Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids” does have one such chapter. But, as a libertarian, Caplan’s book does not contain any laundry list of government programs designed to make bigger families more common.
Instead, Caplan’s book is about how parents can learn to enjoy parenting more.
Blowback
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How about just not treating them like accessories, through which you vicariously give yourself a mulligan for all your own failures?
CurtZHP on December 23, 2012 at 8:43 PM
This +1000
IR-MN on December 23, 2012 at 8:46 PM
Still working on getting my wife willing for number two. She keeps saying she needs more time. Going for 4 to 5 total. Our daughter is amazing!
astonerii on December 23, 2012 at 8:50 PM
Mr. Carroll has inspired me to bear more children! First, I’ll have to run over to the neighbor’s and borrow some eggs…
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 23, 2012 at 8:51 PM
@Ladysmith lol
tommy71 on December 23, 2012 at 9:12 PM
We wanted two and then began discussing whether or not to have a third. God said we were to have four…
Now my wife wants more, but we’d adopt – and that’s several years away.
I was an only child by blood and so I’m pleased with more than two children, but no more diapers, please!!!
Logus on December 23, 2012 at 9:16 PM
My neighbor says they’re kicking around the idea of Number Two, but they don’t feel ready yet. I said, “If you wait until you feel ready, you’ll never be ready.”
With us, every other kid was an “accident.”
CurtZHP on December 23, 2012 at 9:18 PM
Yeah, the wife says if I accidentally get her pregnant again without informing her of my intentions, it will be the last one. LOL…
She is the one that stopped taking birth control pills… I thought that meant she was ready!
astonerii on December 23, 2012 at 9:21 PM
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on December 23, 2012 at 9:27 PM
I’ll never forget the way I found out about #4. I came home from work, and she was standing in the kitchen glaring at me like she does when the kids have been unholy terrors all day. I’m thinking, “Which one does she want me to kill this time?” She leans in, so the kids don’t hear, and whispers “I’m pregnant!”
I couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes.
CurtZHP on December 23, 2012 at 9:28 PM
My wife told me over the phone, in not so joyful a tone – took a while for the joy to kick in for her. I was laughing – my mother more so.
We actually knew we were pregnant already, but when we went for the first sonogram or ultrasound – I think the OB bypassed the sonogram for the ultrasound due to my wife’s medical history – we discovered we were having twins. It took my wife a couple of days to digest the information and accept it.
I had been teasing and joking to her for months that we’d have twins. My mother had evidently been PRAYING for it!
My wife jokingly blames me for the twins but I tell her I had no part in it – they’re fraternal – it’s all her “fault”.
Cannot imagine this house without those four kids now, even if funds are tight. Curt, your neighbor is right about waiting. Wait too long, and it’ll be too late.
Logus on December 23, 2012 at 9:53 PM
Same here. It ain’t easy, but I’ll take this over life without those kids any day.
CurtZHP on December 23, 2012 at 10:02 PM
Overestimate the resources?! I’ll give you an ‘overestimate’ you pompous breeder !@#%$: a single part-time job that may not go past Dec 31st, no car, and less than $1000 in the bank. Never smoked or drank in my life, don’t buy a daily $3 cup of coffee from StarSchmucks. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
You wanna make a REAL case for having kids, be you a libertarian or a conservative, you’re going to have to do a hell of a lot more than shake your fingers and say “some day it’ll be too laaaaate” like you’re our parent with a bad case of grandbaby rabies.
Crack down on illegal peasant labor. Get some of these frikking taxes off our backs. Make it unpleasant enough to ship jobs to peasants in Commieland that employers stop doing it. Get us out of paying for the sexual habits of our less-responsible peers.
And those are just a FEW ideas.
MelonCollie on December 23, 2012 at 11:36 PM
So hey if we’re going to build our entire health care and retirement system for the elderly on the premise that young healthy people will pay into it…
Maybe the largest baby boom demographic aborting over 40 million kids and preventing countless others via contraception over the past forty years was kinda short-sighted in the long term, huh?
BKennedy on December 24, 2012 at 2:03 AM
I told my daughter if I’d known it would be so much fun I would have started earlier. She overheard me telling my sister my period started a few years ago, and when I got off the phone she asked me if that meant she still had a chance to get a brother or sister. She’s just starting her teens, so I guess that’s when it gets more expensive. It hasn’t been bad up till now.
Night Owl on December 24, 2012 at 5:00 AM
From the headline’s implication,why would having more children be considered ‘non-libertarian’ in the first place?
Dr. Carlo Lombardi on December 24, 2012 at 7:11 AM
Anti-contraception is a fundie overreaction. Abortion accounts for at least 50 million potential citizens.
And honestly our system is a social Ponzi scheme. Not too surprising when you remember it was started in the days when a good part of America still lived on farms and had ~6-8 kids per family. The minute the Baby Boom wound down, the system was doomed to failure. Roe v. Wade just put afterburners on the endgame.
That’s a pretty good question actually, and I’m not sure I know the answer.
MelonCollie on December 24, 2012 at 7:22 AM
sell them to pedofile networks 1 million a pop?/
nathor on December 24, 2012 at 7:57 AM