Typical parents here spend tons of time on their kids, take them to extracurricular activities, have family vacations and trips every year, do play dates and kid social events every weekend. Raising kids is an enormous amount of work, and two kid versus four is an enormous difference. Having only two elementary school kids versus also ha…
Typical parents here spend tons of time on their kids, take them to extracurricular activities, have family vacations and trips every year, do play dates and kid social events every weekend. Raising kids is an enormous amount of work, and two kid versus four is an enormous difference. Having only two elementary school kids versus also having two babies is a big deal and absolutely does inhibit adult lifestyles.
Even Caplan himself only has four kids. That is more than his career-centric peers, but for being such a vocal champion of having kids, that isn't that many. Why not five? Because it's a lot of work and money. I'm curious how much child rearing help Caplan gets from his wife and family. All of the high quality parents I know have 2-3 children and say they don't want to start over with babies, it's too much work, and they are right that it really is a ton of work to add another baby.
I also agree that most older adults would probably be happier if they had had more children in the past.
Typical parents here spend tons of time on their kids, take them to extracurricular activities, have family vacations and trips every year, do play dates and kid social events every weekend. Raising kids is an enormous amount of work, and two kid versus four is an enormous difference. Having only two elementary school kids versus also having two babies is a big deal and absolutely does inhibit adult lifestyles.
Even Caplan himself only has four kids. That is more than his career-centric peers, but for being such a vocal champion of having kids, that isn't that many. Why not five? Because it's a lot of work and money. I'm curious how much child rearing help Caplan gets from his wife and family. All of the high quality parents I know have 2-3 children and say they don't want to start over with babies, it's too much work, and they are right that it really is a ton of work to add another baby.
I also agree that most older adults would probably be happier if they had had more children in the past.