Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids

Reading pro-natalist literature

Bryan Caplan’s book, Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids, argues for the claim you’d expect it to make.

The argument: having children is one of the most rewarding things anyone can do. Very few people regret a child. Yes, parents report being less happy moment-to-moment than non-parents, but, and this is the core theme of the book, that’s because parents try too hard to shape their children. Once you start parenting less, the selfish case for having one more child is set.

Parents spend a lot of time parenting. Caplan on 1975 to 2000:

The average dad has roughly doubled his effort. The average mom spends more time taking care of her kids than she did when the average mom was a housewife.

Why do they do this?

Because they believe that their efforts will improve their children’s lives. Not just for their years at home, but for the whole. 

Caplan argues that this is mistaken. Parents can’t influence the long run of their children’s lives that much. To establish this point, he carefully reviews the twin and adoption studies showing that long-run outcomes for children adopted by middle-class families in the United States have more in common with their biological parents than their adoptive parents – when it comes to wealth, health, religious beliefs, political beliefs; essentially everything. If you’re not familiar with this research, Caplan does a good job summarizing it:

The best available evidence shows that large differences in upbringing have little effect on how kids turn out. While healthy, smart, happy, successful, virtuous parents tend to have matching offspring, the reason is largely nature, not nurture.

Further, where the environment does change us, it’s not necessarily the environment of the home. Instead, it’s peers, random social encounters , and the larger culture.

The common sense argument for this is that it’s difficult to change how anyone turns out. Most spouses can’t change who their partner is. Husbands and wives can train one another, but every relationship must face the limits of that project.

So, if you're a parent, don’t do anything that should bring child services to your door – otherwise, focus on creating a good home for your family while you can and less on trying to create your children into who you want them to be. Parenting matters, but not because it determines who one's children will be.

For educated upper and middle-class Americans, this message seems directionally correct. Have one more child, and worry less about improving them. Who people are is up to them, not their parents. 

That said, I wouldn’t emphasize nature as much as Caplan does. I’d prefer to make the slightly more complicated argument that factors outside of most parents’ control shape their children, whether it is nature or nature.

But I wonder if Caplan underrated how much parents can change their children. There are now several research programs documenting differences between generations. One reason generations must be different comes down to parenting styles: styles that have changed considerably since 1975. Consider works arguing that "the children these days really are different" like Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation. In that book, Haidt argues that Generation Z and some Millennials are so neurotic because of the removal of a “play-based” childhood into a “safe and phone-based” one. 

Both Caplan and Haidt agree – we should go back to the play-based childhood. But the parents who decided against play-based childhoods for their kids did so with reason – one of them being the rising importance of education – and it seems like their decisions are going to have long-term consequences for their children. 

---

There are several lines from the book worth emphasizing:

Parents and teens habitually complain about each other. Teens say parents are mean and controlling, parents say teens are hostile and ungrateful. These mutual recriminations suggest that parents and teenagers spend too much time together. When your teenager feels like a prisoner, and treats you like a jailer, less is more.

Benefit to the child is almost the only socially acceptable justification for discipline. As a result, parents use a lot less discipline than they would if they counted their own interests.

Secondhand stress is one of kids’ leading grievances. In the Ask the Children survey, researcher Ellen Galinsky interviewed over 1,000 kids in grades three to twelve and asked parents to guess how kids would respond. One key question: “If you were granted one wish to change the way that your mother’s/father’s work affects your life, what would that wish be?” Kids’ answers were striking.

Out of all the wishes on the Parental Wish List, “good memories” are one of the few that clearly depend upon how you raise your child.

Crucial caveats like: Parents’ short-run effects are much bigger than their long-run effects. Upbringing has lasting effects on appreciation, and religious and political identity. And: For every kid who yields to parental pressure, there’s probably another who rebels against it. Learning about these crucial caveats lets us reconcile science and common sense.

Twin and adoption researchers should take rebellion more seriously. I doubt I’d be such a nerd if my dad and brother weren’t sports fans, or as slow to lose my temper if my parents had more often kept their cool. From a practical point of view, however, it doesn’t make much difference whether parenting is impotent or just backfires half the time. One story says, “Your efforts won’t work.” The other says, “Your efforts are equally likely to make things better or worse.”

When teens start to assert their independence, we advise parents to “Step back and trust that you raised your kids right.” I’m almost saying the same thing, except that I’m advising you to step back and trust not in your parenting but in your genes.

People sometimes ask me, “So you mean it doesn’t matter how I treat my child?” They never ask, “So you mean it doesn’t matter how I treat my husband or wife?” and yet the situation is similar. I don’t expect that the way I act toward my husband is going to determine what kind of person he will be ten or twenty years from now. I do expect, however, that it will affect how happy he is to live with me and whether we will still be good friends in ten or twenty years.

Maybe the only way to reach teens is with a noble lie, but I prefer an honest approach. Like: Having a child is a serious decision. But if you take the decision seriously enough, you won’t just avoid pregnancy until you’re ready for kids. You’ll also start having kids before it’s too late to have as many as you want.

“Almost everyone—children of flawed parents included—is glad to be alive. The upshot is that, contrary to popular worries, almost anyone who decides to reproduce is doing the child a favor.”

You can have too many children, but not too many grandchildren. Like your kids, they’re cute, they’re playful, and they bring hope. Unlike your kids, you can send them home when you’ve had enough. It’s the deal of a lifetime. Maybe that’s why there are over a million Google hits for ‘child-free,’ but only a couple thousand for ‘grandchild-free.’