Hi Pavane,

Thanks so much for reading and responding.

The answer to your first question is obviously no; I expect parents to provide for their children. More on this in a minute because it's vital.

As to your second question, the obvious answer is YES! It's one of the reasons why I'm happy to support kids who are not my own. If you're a Christian, I suggest checking out Compassion International where you can sponsor a child (or even multiple children if you so desire). If you're not, I'm sure you can find a good secular organization.

But it's worth pointing out that not having kids won't help kids in need, so it's a bit of a non-sequitur.

Of course, if you really want to help the global poor on a policy level, the solution is pretty clear: Drill baby, drill. The most critical factor in getting the world fed is having cheap energy, and the way to do that is fossil fuels.

The cost of raising a kid from 0-18 is WAY more than $250k...it's 18 years. And your responsibilities aren't done after age 18, although they will look very different. Some things are costly and hollow. Other things are costly and deeply meaningful. It's pretty obvious which category having children falls into. It's an incredible sacrifice, but it's well worth it.

Even though I just said that the cost is more than what you indicated (because time is more valuable than money), it's important to acknowledge that the *dollar* cost of raising kids is way less than what you say. I'm sure someone somewhere has crunched the numbers and come up with $250k based on how they *think* parents should be spending money, I guarantee you that you can do it for much, much less. If the $250k thing were true, it would have cost me ~320k over the last ten years to raise kids to 10, 8, 4, and 1. Put simply, there's no possible way I could have afforded that. But far from being ruined financially, my net worth has increased enormously over the past decade.

"Children are not some hobby" I could not agree more with this statement. This is one that I seriously hope you proclaim from the mountaintops. Bring it up as often as you can to as many people as you can. It is so important and true.

But this gets us back to the point about responsibility we initially touched on. Your question about me supporting other people's kids seemed to be implying that it is wrong for me to suggest that other people take on responsibility. But it's the exact opposite. It's wrong to encourage others to evade responsibility. To anyone who has stumbled across this comment: The best thing for you, and for society, would be for you to voluntarily adopt responsibility instead of following the narcissistic vacuity of self-actualization.

As to the notion that young people cannot afford to have kids, I have three things I would like them to consider:

1. If they are lucky enough to be an American, there are SUBSTANTIAL safety nets for the financially needy. The child tax credit is $2k per child. If you have three kids that's $6k in tax credits. Unless you have a great income, you will almost certainly get all the taxes that you paid during the year back *plus* a bunch extra that you didn't pay. And that's just tax benefits. There's also food assistance, Medicaid, homeschool scholarships (depending on where you live), etc.

2. The need to provide for children helps people work harder and aim higher in their career. This is one of the benefits of taking on responsibility, it forces you to push yourself and to grow beyond what you would have done.

3. As they say, you can afford anything, but you can't afford everything. If you want kids AND luxury clothes, cars, homes, and vacations, you had better be in the upper echelon of income earners. Many people will have to sacrifice always wearing designer clothes in order to have kids. Maybe some of them will figure out a way to have both. At any rate, at the end of your life it's not going to be much of a problem if you didn't wear as many designer clothes if you otherwise could have if you had made different tradeoffs. But it will be a huge problem if you're alone.

Do you happen to have kids? I'm just curious if this is merely theoretical for you and you are just looking to justify anyone that you were worried would be offended by my advice, or are you yourself choosing not to have kids because of the cost?

Thanks again for reading and responding!