This is one of the most important topics I’ve talked about on this blog for a while, and a very serious issue. I see way too many of you guys literally flirting with disaster while your entire future teeters on a cliff.
A while ago I wrote about the decision on whether or not to live with a woman. Many of you have already made this decision after carefully weighing the pros and cons. That’s fine. However, regarding a second decision, that of whether or not to have children, many of you are screwing this up big time. Over and over again, I see men making the mistake of having kids just because “Eh, I don’t really mind, and she wants them, so…”
NO!

-By Caleb Jones

I’m not saying never have kids. I have two kids myself, so obviously I think having kids is perfectly fine under certain conditions. The problem is that many of you are using the wrong set of conditions in order to make this decision.
The Issues With Having Kids
Here are the list of negative ways in which your life changes the instant you have your first child with a woman you’re in a relationship with. I am not talking here about accidental pregnancies, where you were stupid and got some random chick pregnant by accident and have to pay child support from afar. That’s bad enough, but having a kid with your OLTR or OLTR wife creates even more limits on your freedom. Let me count the ways:

1. As I’ve written about many times here, the studies and the research on this is very clear: having kids makes you less happy overall. Every study clearly shows that the vast majority of men and women who have children experience a drop in overall happiness for about 20 years until the little bastards grow up and move out. Articles I’ve written about this are here and here, but feel free to do your own research on this if you don’t believe me. The data is very clear on this.

As you know, long-term, consistent happiness is the core attribute of the Alpha Male 2.0. Regardless of your personal feelings, outdated biological urges, or Societal Programming, purposely doing something that is likely to damage your long-term happiness is extremely dangerous, and should only be done after very careful, hard, rational evaluation.

2. Children are expensive as hell. Men (and women) have absolutely no idea how expensive raising a child really is. It will cost you a quarter of a million dollars to raise ONE kid to age 17, and that doesn’t include college costs, which could easily increase this figure by 50% or more.
And that’s just one kid! What if you have two or three? Holy shit!

Moreover, kids cost more money as they grow. Babies are expensive, but little kids are even more expensive, and god damn teenagers are even more expensive. This is why many families have a baby, then don’t consider it any big deal financially so they crank out two or three more. By the time the kids are eight or nine years old, mom has lost her mind and is in need of therapy (seriously), and dad, if he’s still around which statistically he won’t be by then, has gone into massive debt supporting all of these expensive kids, destroying his standard of living and threatening his ability to ever retire (again, seriously).Do you have $300,000 laying around you can use to raise a kid? Do you not mind increasing your annual expenses by $13,000 a year per child? If these numbers bother you at least a little, you should probably refrain from having kids.

3. There will be a child support gun to your head whether you like it or not. Once the relationship with your baby momma ends (and again, statistically speaking, it will), your friendly big government will put a gun to your head and force you to pay child support until the last kid is 18 years old (at the earliest). Paying for your kids is fine, and you should pay for the children you voluntarily create. (I did.) The problem is that if you are ever unable to pay this child support because you lose your job or go through an economic downturn, your friendly big government will gleefully suspend your driver’s license, garnish your wages, and throw your ass in jail, even if you can prove it wasn’t your fault.

Moreover, you’ll have to pay your baby momma child support every month even if she becomes an objectively horrible mother who treats your kids like crap. Have fun with that.
I analyzed child support in great detail here and here. The bottom line is that men never consider the child support angle when they’re making the decision on whether or not to have kids because they stupidly think they’ll be with this woman for the rest of their lives. News flash, pal. You won’t. You must assume that you will be paying child support for at least a percentage of your kid’s lives and factor that into your decision.

4. Your kid could be horrible. I’ve said before that there is no such thing as bad kids, only bad parents. I stand by that statement. Just about every time I see a horrible kid, I can pinpoint that behavior right back to a shitty parent. However, I said just about every time. I have to admit there are exceptions to this rule. I have indeed seen really horrible kids in families with perfectly good parents.

Your kid could be like this. You have no idea what your kids will be like before you have them. Likely, you’ll be fine if you’re a good dad and your lady is a decent mom, but it’s possible you could have a hellion on your hands. Your kid, or kids, could do drugs, get drunk a lot, commit crimes, get pregnant in high school (or get someone pregnant), have massive behavior problems, be hyper-as-fuck ADHD basket cases, have learning disabilities, and on and on. Add the possibility of birth defects and mental retardation on top of that. Do you want to spend the rest of your life taking care of a mentally retarded or heavily autistic child? I doubt it.

“Wait a minute BD, doesn’t that fall within the in The 2% Rule?” I wish it did, but it doesn’t. 3% of babies born in the US have a “major malformation at birth”, and that doesn’t account for retardation, or your kid being mentally and physically sound but turning out to be an unworkable asshole. Add in those factors, and we’re now around anywhere from 5-10% that your kid could be seriously problematic. Not great odds to be fair, but not in the 2% Rule either, which means these factors must be considered.
5. Your relationship with your lady will suffer. The two biggest negative pressures of all factors that can be placed upon a live-in couple are:

1. Money problems / disagreements
and
2. Arguments regarding the kids

Having kids exacerbates both of those above problems, since kids cost a lot of money. I can tell you from extensive personal experience (myself when I was married with kids) and anecdotal experience (from all the married people I personally know) that the biggest, most intense, and more frequent arguments you will have with your wife or live-in girlfriend are going to be about your kids. No other topic will make her as enraged. I’m serious. Move in with a woman and have kids with her and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about. Women lose all sense of objectivity and logic when it comes to their precious little babies, and if you disagree with how she’s raising them, there will be hell to pay.

Honestly, one of the biggest reasons I gave Pink Firefly and myself such high odds of working out is not because her or I am amazing or compatible or whatever, but it’s because we will not have any children. That biggest source of arguments and anger won’t ever exist in our relationship. Trust me, you have no idea what a wonderful relief this is to both of us.

6. You will be number two behind your kids. Conservative Alpha Male 1.0’s love to get married and monogamous with a wife and have kids, only to be shocked and horrified that as soon as the kids come, their wife now considers their kids are more important than him. I’ve seen this happen over and over again to men, and every time, they freak out about it, especially if they’re Alpha Males.

As soon as a woman has a child, congratulations, you will be number two to her, and for the rest of your life. That child, even if that child is yours, will more important to her than you, FOREVER. If being “number one” in your woman’s life is important to you, then you shouldn’t have any kids with her.

The Decision
Okay, those are the factors you need to consider when making the decision to have kids. Because of all of these extreme, life-long negative factors, here’s the bottom line to this decision, and I’m right about this:
YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE KIDS UNLESS YOUR DESIRE TO HAVE KIDS IS AT LEAST AN EIGHT ON THE ONE TO TEN SCALE
That’s it. You should only have kids if you really, really, really want to have kids. Otherwise, you should not have any.

I was in this category. I really, really wanted kids. It was the only reason I even bothered to get legally married so many years ago. I was more excited about having kids than I was to get married. Granted, I had my kids way too soon in life, and that was stupid of me. But at least I really, really wanted kids, and wasn’t having kids because I didn’t really care one way or the other and the woman in my life pressured me to have some.
To be clear, this means:
If I ask you if you want kids, and you say you don’t know, then DON’T HAVE KIDS.
If I ask you if you want kids, and you say you haven’t really thought about it, then DON’T HAVE KIDS.
If I ask you if you want kids, and you say something like, “Eh, I don’t know. I guess,” then DON’T HAVE KIDS.
If I ask you if you want kids, and you say something like, “Well, my girlfriend/wife really wants them,” then DON’T HAVE KIDS. That also means that you may need to end the relationship with her as well. As always, I walk my talk here. One of the primary reasons I broke up with my prior girlfriend (HBM) is that she really wanted kids and I didn’t.

Having kids is too big of a decision and involves too many negatives to just have them because you barely want them or because the woman in your life is pressuring you, and that describes way too many of you. I’ve seen too many men expeience all kinds of long-term life problems because they didn’t want kids or said “eh, I guess” then proceeded to have kids because their oneitis woman wanted them to. You can’t be in this category if you seek long-term consistent happiness.Again, I’m not saying never have kids, so you more traditional, right-wing guys remember I said that.

If you really want kids, you’ve really thought about it deeply, accounted for all the negatives, and you know for sure that your desire to have kids is at least an eight on a scale from one to ten (which is a lot!), then fine. Make sure you make enough money, wait until you’re at least 40 years old and have accomplished a lot of your financial and sexual goals, then have kids following the advice I gave in this article here, then raise them under an Alpha 2.0 model I outlined in chapters 23 and 24 in my book.(Since I know I will be asked about this, in a future article I will cover the unusual exceptions to the rule where you might be able to have kids without it affecting your happiness, but these scenarios are rare and likely won’t apply to you.)

Don’t have kids unless you’re 100% sure you want them really badly! Otherwise you will fuck up your life![
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