JVL Elsewhere
April 18th, 2011




Over the weekend I reviewed Bryan Caplan’s Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. It’s a pretty charming book, even though I don’t fully sign-up with his estimation of the cost of children.

Also, I’ve got a long-ish piece in the Standard on Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s WikiLeaks book. There will not be a quiz.

Update: Galley Reader X just sent me this little post by Peter Robinson about the Caplan review. Robinson says I give the essay a “nasty” twist by pointing out that study after study shows that parents are less happy than non-parents. Here’s Robinson:

Parents, less happy?  I’d missed all these studies.  More to the point, the finding runs counter to pretty much all I’ve observed throughout my life.  When my college buddies and I were in our twenties, those who remained single, making good money as consultants, jetting here and there, buying sports cars–sure.  At some superficial level, they may have remained “happier.”  But by the time we were all in our mid-thirties, that had changed.  I think of one friend in particular who had a rocket of a career as a management consultant, living the life while the rest of us settled down and raised our families.  On his own admission, he got sick of it.  At 49, he finally married.  At 50, his wife had a child.  He’s happier now–incomparably happier.

None of this is to suggest that non-parents can’t be happy.  Manifestly, they can.  But the idea that non-parents are systematically happier–well, as I say, it runs counter to all my experience.

Can anyone help me here?  Has anyone seen these studies?  What am I missing?

I don’t know Robinson, so maybe I’m mistaking his tone, but it kind of sounds like he thinks I’m just making stuff up. If he looked back at my piece, he’d see that I give Caplan enormous credit because Caplan himself is the one who gamely acknowledges all of this data–even though it runs counter to the thesis of his book. (Caplan’s cheery acknowledgment of the hurdles his argument faces is one of the reasons his book is so good.) If Robinson would like to get acquainted with Caplan’s survey of it, he should start on page 14 of the book. New York Magazine touched on much of the same data in this high-profile piece from last summer. If Robinson would like to look at study data in more detail, Caplan helpfully points the way in his book’s end-notes.

In the comments, Robinson’s readers seem to agree with him that I’m just a kid-hating crank because, gosh darnit, they have kids and just like Robinson, they’re super-duper happy. I’m not even sure how to respond to this. Except to say that

(1) The world is bigger than the experience of any individual. People saying that they’re happier because of their kids–so kids make you happy are like the aid to Walter Mondale on election night in 1984 whispering, “But everyone I know voted for him . . .”

(2) My criticism of Caplan’s book was not that people shouldn’t have children because babies make us unhappy. Rather, it was: On the evidence, babies tend to make us less happy than we would be otherwise. But we should have them because “happiness” is a superficial goal and children are a key component of a well-examined and well-lived life. My point was precisely that we should have children because there are bigger things in this world than ourselves and personal happiness. The commenters can, perhaps, be forgiven for not having bothered to read my review–Robinson doesn’t provide a link to it, linking instead to Caplan’s Amazon page.

It’s unfair to hold Robinson responsible for his readers, but that thread reads an awful lot like a Mark Levin Facebook page.



  1. Suzanne Venker April 18, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    Dear Mr. Last:

    Enjoyed your article this past weekend in the WSJ — it’s a subject I’ve often considered for a third book. Thought you’d be interested in my current book, which you can find out about at http://www.theflipsideoffeminism.com. I’d be happy to have my publisher send you a review copy of Flipside if you’re interested.

    All best,
    Suzanne Venker

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  3. WershovenistPig April 18, 2011 at 3:01 pm

    Re: the 50-year-old guy finally having a kid.

    I’d suspect that guy is happier than average. He lived the bachelor lifestyle and had a highly successful career as a mgmt. consultant. I’ll just assume he made a shit ton of cash and didn’t spend it all on hookers and blow. Just a little of it during the 80’s.

    Also, let’s assume because he’s 50, he was able to buy plenty of house before the real estate bubble began in the late 90’s. And perhaps he got to make some serious money there.

    And also, he got to go to college (and pay tuition) before the college bubble pushed tuition prices into the stratosphere.

    My point is, the 50-something has it pretty good. He should be happy. And if the kid gets annoying, I bet he’ll start interviewing nannies he can easily afford.

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  5. brett April 18, 2011 at 5:22 pm

    > the aid[e] to Walter Mondale on election night in 1984 whispering, “But everyone I know voted for him . . .”

    That was actually Pauline Kael, and she didn’t actually say it, but the concept is a useful one.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Kael#Alleged_Nixon_quote

    Enjoyed the review, and agree with your conclusions.

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  7. Galley Wife April 18, 2011 at 8:10 pm

    Given the moods of our kids today, I’d have made an excellent study participant–falling right in line with the data. : ) “Your mileage may vary,” indeed.

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  9. Steve Sailer April 18, 2011 at 11:17 pm

    “The best argument for children isn’t that they will make you happy or your life fun but that parenthood provides purpose for a well-lived life. Selfishness, in the end, is not sufficient.”

    Excellent.

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  11. Ray Sawhill April 19, 2011 at 12:40 am

    Excellent review.

    I’ve got one small quarrel, though, which is with the word “we.” “We” should have children, “we” shouldn’t have children, etc. “We” who? As far as I can tell there is no “we,” at least not beyond a generalized sort of “the species, and that’d be us, would probably do well to reproduce itself.” Aside from that, there’s only people. And having kids is probably the right thing for some of them to do, and not having kids is probably the right thing for some others of them to do. And, realistically speaking, how do you really know until/unless you actually have them?

    I’ve known plenty of people who love their kids and who’ve found all the trouble worthwhile; a certain number who thought that having kids ruined their lives (this was a common type of suburban daddy when I was a kid myself); and a fair number of people who don’t have kids, who’ve never been interested in ’em, and who are perfectly OK with not having ’em. Given all this, I’m very wary of making any arguments about what “we” should do where having kids is concerned.

    And given this —

    http://www.susps.org/images/worldpopgr.gif

    — I don’t worry that the species is on the verge of going extinct.

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  13. Jason Malloy April 19, 2011 at 2:15 am

    But we should have them because “happiness” is a superficial goal and children are a key component of a well-examined and well-lived life. My point was precisely that we should have children because there are bigger things in this world than ourselves and personal happiness.

    False dichotomy. Community and helping others are important aspects of happiness. They aren’t at odds with each other.

    We shouldn’t have children if there are better ways of helping others, especially if these ways make us happier in the process.

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  15. mrmandias April 19, 2011 at 10:08 am

    I don’t worry that the species is on the verge of going extinct.

    There are lots of ills short of species extinction. I mean, running my finger down the chronology of American history, we got taxation without representation, weak and ineffectual government, slavery, low wages, lack of legal rights for women, Nazi domination of Europe, Soviet domination of Europe, etc. None of those were extinction level crises. Heck, even all out nuclear war would have left the species a going concern. So maybe extinction shouldn’t be our only metric when it comes to demography.

    In fact, the low birth rates in the developed world and among the populations in the developed world with more human capital are setting us up for all sorts of ills, socially and economically.

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  17. keypusher April 19, 2011 at 11:39 am

    I’ve got one small quarrel, though, which is with the word “we.” “We” should have children, “we” shouldn’t have children, etc. “We” who? As far as I can tell there is no “we,” at least not beyond a generalized sort of “the species, and that’d be us, would probably do well to reproduce itself.”

    Since Mr. Last points out in his review that “The average college- educated woman today has just 1.7 babies over the course of her life, which is not enough to sustain America’s population in the long run,” I submit it’s pretty obvious who “we” is. It’s not as if 1.7 is the fertility rate per woman in the United States.

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  19. Jonathan V. Last April 19, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    The “we” shouldn’t be that much of a mystery–I’ve written thousands of words on fertility decline and demography. I’m writing a book about it. There’s a whole tab right up top for the subject. By “we” I mean Americans.

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  21. muranophile April 19, 2011 at 4:56 pm

    As a parent of three kids between 3 and 13, I do think at times that they are testing my patience in more ways than one.

    A sample size of 1 is notoriously inaccurate, but I do often reflect on our level of happiness and find myself in agreement with the results of studies described in http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/why-does-anyone-have-children/

    Most comments on this post appear to agree that having kids is a source of happiness and personal satisfaction. The anecdotal evidence reflected in the comments comes from parents whose kids are either younger than 5, or already grown.

    Where are the testimonials from K-12 kids parents? Could it be they’re not that happy?

    Why don’t parents of teenagers declare their unbearable levels of happiness? Let’s not get carried away here, having kids and being a responsible parent requires a lot of hard work and lifestyle changes that may not be a source of happiness at all times.

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  23. The Incredible Mr. Last | ImNotHerzog April 19, 2011 at 9:39 pm

    […] So I go away to Atlanta for a couple of days (more on my trip soon), and when I get back what do I find? Only that the greatest blogger in the world decided to highlight one of your typically awesome book reviews, which review then turned into an amusing back and forth with Peter Robinson over at Ricochet. […]

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  25. James S April 21, 2011 at 2:49 am

    Wow, how do you even validly measure something as nebulous as happiness? My guess is that on any happiness scale, parents indicators swing as wildly as a Charlie Sheen interview – moments of awesomeness interspersed with absolute and utter madness. As to the above comment about K-12 kid’s parents: that’s me and I could not imagine how boring life would be without my teenage girls.

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  27. derek sutton April 24, 2011 at 11:30 pm

    Having kids sucks unless you enjoy being a slave to a short tempered and endlessly needy human. Having children today means constant supervision, endless micropayments that drain your bank account, and a complete inability to have some peace and quiet. And don’t forget the guilt! The constant, gut gnawing guilt. It’s horrible all the way around. The only upside that I can see is having somebody to play xbox with in a couple more years.

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