Damn, Ill never know

❌ three kids and no money

❌ no kids and three money

✅ no kids and no money

I think people grossly overestimate the cost of having children. Speaking for Europe though.

Will from what I understand the cost of birth alone starts at 80k in medical debt for Americans? This is not counting 9 months of prebirth care, child caring items like bed and clothes, and also Im a man with no intention of having a child so 80k might be slightly off
- Nah its like 18k USD or so if you're uninsured. 3k or so if you are. Daycare and supplies are brutal though, probably 20k on average annually - higher if you live in an expensive state. Childcare specific costs get cheaper as they grow and eventually they hit public school. Past that you still have to cloth, feed, transport and lodge them - so just imagine what you spend on yourself and thats about what you spend on each child.
- Yeah I'm not the guy that advocates for kids or anything and definitely have my share of regret in that area, but we have pretty basic insurance in the US and the entire cost of the pregnancy was $200 out of pocket, not including parking. Every doctor visit, the delivery, and our own recovery room.
  A coworker who is insured through his wife just had a little girl last week and actually only had to do copays for prenatal prescriptions. Oh and parking. They always fuck you there.
  E. I asked another buddy just for shits and he paid ~$1200 flat rate for each of his three kids delivery with a few hundred each prenatal. Expensive but manageable at least.
- If you have halfway decent insurance (which not everyone does of course) it is not particularly expensive out of pocket. The bill from the hospital is huge though, yes, but it gets picked up with insurance.
  A "funny" feature of US healthcare is that it may be cheaper to get pregnant in November-February or so, because then the bulk of the healthcare will take place in one year and you'll meet any out of pocket max in one year only. Giving birth in January, on the other hand, means you probably meet your out of pocket twice --- once for pregnancy, once for birth.
- Assuming you have health insurance, which we all should have, it's nowhere close to that expensive. A C-section cost me about $1500 in silicon valley with a high deductible crappy insurance plan. A regular delivery would have been even cheaper.
  Kids are not very expensive except in two areas... Child care, or the opportunity cost of a parent staying home to take care of them, and college. And maybe feeding them when they become teenagers.... Because holy crap they eat a lot!
  Now I'm lucky enough that I made enough money that my wife was able to not work when we started having kids, but if I ignore that opportunity cost (which is fucking massive), in me experience kids are actually quite cheap.
  Food was cheap, clothing was hand-me-down, even most infant care stuff was cheap if you get it used and people are always giving away used stuff that their kids outgrow. Child care was the only thing I would consider expensive when they're young. (This is looking at things from a middle class perspective)

PSA: Money is fucking disgusting. Don't touch your eyes with it.

Right?! I had a visceral reaction seeing that.

I’m childfree and broke as a joke. Kids just make you more poor. Being kidless doesn’t automatically mean you’re rich.

To be fair wiping your tears with $300 for a meme also doesn’t make you rich

Btw will you watch my kids just for a few seconds? 6 hours later Ah the joy of children 😤

You should say no. Easier said than done, I know.

Cost is absolutely a valid reason to abstain from having children, but it's just one of many; and is a blip on the radar compared to things like refusing to subjugate them to the dystopian hellscape of a planet we're building for them.

Choosing to have a child is an act of cruelty, usually made as a result of completely selfish thinking like giving yourself / your partner that 'little bundle of joy' or continuing a family legacy or even to build a footsoldier to stand as fodder against the hordes of people pouring fuel into the dumpsterfire we live in.

...but yeah, they are also expensive.

What you described is an absolutely valid reason to abstain from having children, but just a blip on the radar compared to not wanting to have one.
- Not sure what you mean. Weighing factors leads to a decision... the factors compare to each other, not to the decision.
  Like, say I decide to skip a meal: multiple factors might be at play i.e. feeling nauseous, not being hungry, not having time, etc. Some of those factors will be weighted more heavily than others, like if I'm feeling nauseous then all the other ones are moot: I'm not gonna eat. Saying that feeling nauseous is a blip compared to deciding not to eat doesn't make sense.

These arguments are typically from younger people that value stuff over personal relationships. Older people without kids around my neighborhood spend all day grooming their lawns and washing their cars, looking forward to visits by nieces and nephews.

And bizarrely, they are full of parenting advice.

And so you just know they are unhappy? You know parents also have kids up and move away too. There is no guarantee that they will keep you company in old age or even be around.
As a childless person I'm very happy in my mid to later life to be able to travel frequently, to see my nieces and nephews, and to do what I like like my own hobbies. Don't be so quick to assume that they must be unhappy.

Say you're American without saying you're American.

Yeah, kids being an additional source of financial expenses is an exclusively American thing. Nobody else on earth, when having a child, needs to pay for anything to support the child for the rest of its entire life.

You have the inalienable right not to have children, if you don't want to, but if the reason is money, it's sad. On more than one level.

Not wanting to have kids because of money is a perfectly fine reason and isn't sad at all. Not sure what your problem is.
- I think parent's comment (no pun intended) is that if you want to, all things being equal, but you don't solely because of money, then that's a sad statement about the state of the world, not about you as a person.
- It's sad.
Thank you for your opinion in calling my choices sad. Money is not the only reason why I dont want kids, its just one of many. Them being ugly is another reason.
- Them being ugly is another reason.
  Did you mean to burn yourself or?
- If you wrote that and reposted this image at face value, it's even sadder.
  But again, it's your life, I wasn't judging it but I was judging the meme.

I feel like most people can't love or nurture another human being they don't feel ownership of.