culture
philosophy
Can Surveys Help You Decide to Have Children?
Host, EconTalk
Center for Applied Rationality
1
0
Genesis
Response
September 29th, 2020
Through most of human history, religion, cultural norms, and economic necessity encouraged people to have children. Becoming a parent was an unquestioned ideal. But for many people today, having kids is a choice, not a given. For many would-be parents, children bring certain costs and uncertain benefits. What to do?
A reasonable thought is to gather information. Talk to parents and you’ll learn that parenting changes not only what gives you pleasure but your very conception of happiness. Philosopher L.A. Paul calls this the vampire problem. As unappealing as being a vampire might be to us mere mortals, vampires (Paul imagines) look on their former selves with disdain. So how is a non-vampire to think about the desirability of making the leap? From their current perspective or the perspective they will acquire once they cross over?
This is one of the reasons why survey data is problematic for transformative decisions like parenting. Even if surveys show (and many do) that parents are happier than non-parents, which of your selves should you have in mind when making the choice?
It’s tempting to say this is just philosophical sophistry. If parents are happier, then have children.
But survey results are averages. Not every parent is happier than every non-parent. Even if the average parent is happier than the average non-parent, that doesn’t mean you will be happier as a parent.
It is tempting to say that if 92% of surveyed parents, say, are content with their choice to become parents, then surely the odds are overwhelming that you, too, would be happy with the choice. But this assumes the people conducting the survey had no agenda, that they designed and ran the survey well, and that respondents answered honestly rather than feeling a need to justify their choices to a stranger asking questions.
A deeper problem is that survey questions are inherently ambiguous. What do people mean when they say they are happy having had children or happy being childless? Or that the happiness of being a parent is a 4.32 out of 5?
I’ve been a parent for almost three decades—a little over 10,000 days of my life. Some of those days as a parent were glorious. Some were harrowing. What does it mean to boil down that complexity to a 4.32? Does it mean most of the days were good or does it mean that despite the predominance of bad days, the good days were worth it? Or does it mean that the meaning and richness I gained from parenting was the main thing? Or does it mean something entirely different—that I am happy to be a parent even if the daily ebb and flow of pain and pleasure might even have been negative.
Being a parent isn’t like buying a car. For transformative experiences, the net benefits, even if I could measure them, are beside the point.
When it comes to transformative experiences, survey results tell us something about how people answer surveys and not so much about the experience of being a parent and how that will affect your life.
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