The Decision on Whether or Not to Have Kids
This is one of the most important topics Iâve 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. Thatâs 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 âEh, I donât really mind, and she wants them, soâŚâ
NO!
No, no, no, no.
Iâm 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 youâre 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. Thatâs 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 Iâve 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 Iâve written about this are here and here, but feel free to do your own research on this if you donât 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 Regardless of your personal feelings, outdated biological urges, or Societal Programming, purposely doing something that is likely to damage your long-term happiness is extremely dangerous, and should only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 doesnât include college costs, which could easily increase this figure by 50% or more.
And thatâs 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 donât 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 heâs still around which statistically he wonât 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 driverâs license, garnish your wages, and throw your ass in jail, even if you can prove it wasnât your fault.
Moreover, youâll 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 theyâre making the decision on whether or not to have kids because they stupidly think theyâll be with this woman for the rest of their lives. News flash, pal. You wonât. You must assume that you will be paying child support for at least a percentage of your kidâs lives and factor that into your decision.
4. Your kid could be horrible. Iâve 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, youâll be fine if youâre a good dad and your lady is a decent mom, but itâs 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.
âWait a minute BD, doesn’t that fall within the in The 2% Rule?â I wish it did, but it doesn’t. 3% of babies born in the US have a âmajor malformation at birthâ, and that doesnât account for retardation, or your kid being mentally and physically sound but turning out to be an unworkable asshole. Add in those factors, and weâre 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. Iâm serious. Move in with a woman and have kids with her and youâll see exactly what Iâm talking about. Women lose all sense of objectivity and logic when it comes to their precious little babies, and if you disagree with how sheâs 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 itâs because we will not have any children. That biggest source of arguments and anger wonât 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 1.0âs 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. Iâve seen this happen over and over again to men, and every time, they freak out about it, especially if theyâre 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 ânumber oneâ in your womanâs life is important to you, then you shouldnât 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, hereâs the bottom line to this decision, and Iâm 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
Thatâs 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 wasnât 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 donât know, then DONâT HAVE KIDS.
If I ask you if you want kids, and you say you havenât really thought about it, then DONâT HAVE KIDS.
If I ask you if you want kids, and you say something like, âEh, I donât know. I guess,â then DONâT HAVE KIDS.
If I ask you if you want kids, and you say something like, âWell, my girlfriend/wife really wants them,â then DONâT 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 didnât.
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. Iâve seen too many men expeience all kinds of long-term life problems because they didnât want kids or said âeh, I guessâ then proceeded to have kids because their oneitis woman wanted them to. You canât be in this category if you seek long-term consistent happiness.
Again, Iâm not saying never have kids, so you more traditional, right-wing guys remember I said that. If you really want kids, youâve 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 youâre 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 wonât apply to you.)
Donât have kids unless youâre 100% sure you want them really badly! Otherwise you will fuck up your life!
Want over 35 hours of how-to podcasts on how to improve your woman life and financial life? Want to be able to coach with me twice a month? Want access to hours of technique-based video and audio? The SMIC Program is a monthly podcast and coaching program where you get access to massive amounts of exclusive, members-only Alpha 2.0 content as soon as you sign up, and you can cancel whenever you want. Click here for the details.
BD, I just want to know, with so many negatives out weighing the positives (if there are any), why did you have kids? What could possibly be the reason that you wanted kids? Or was it societal programming? How did having kids make you happy? Please be technical, not like women who say ‘i feel more full filled now’!
I want to have kids but I wouldn’t want;
A) A girl. Just to watch her come home one day with a pussy hat on and the eyes of a zombie once the panacea of feminism first gets injected into her soul.
B) A boy. To watch his nature suffer under what is now and especially what is coming. If I raised him right to be good, modest and decent then I quite literally wouldn’t be giving him the right tools to be happy in our current/future societies. How do you raise a boy these days? To be a good guy? Psshh…
So, yeah I want a kid, just not a boy or girl.
Thanks so much BD. I’m mid-forties and childless and it means a lot to me to hear from a guy (an actual father no less) who can see why I was so hesitant.
I agree pretty much with everything BD talks about here, except for the part of waiting until I am “at least 40”. That sounds like a bad idea to me. It might make sense from the financial standpoint, but that’s about it.
I want to be able to bond with my kid. I don’t want to be a 70-75 year old fart by the time he/she hit their prime. I want to be able to connect and being able to relate to them. I also don’t want to go through sleepless exhausting nights during my 40s as I start to age. I would much rather suffer while I have the energy and jump of a younger adult in his early-mid 30s.
Even from a biological point of view, women are not the only ones who have a biological clock. Men do too – the quality of our sperm decreases as we age. And I would like to maximise the chances of my kid growing up healthy and strong.
So I would argue the age of 30-35 is the optimal one for having kids for men.
From the top of my head:
– The house will not be yours anymore. Heck, at least 90% of what was yours when you did not have kids will be “socialized” to the family by your loving wife.
– Stress will go through the roof, even if you do everything right. If you never had to take a sick or hurt kid to the hospital at 3am on a Sunday, believe me, you’re in for a treat đ
– Kiss goodbye to your sleep for at least 3 whole years (for each kid you have).
– Your freedom to travel on low to mid season will be gone. You will have to go when the kids have time off from school. Which means paying hefty prices to go to that beautiful beach or countryside retreat and having a lot patience when the traffic is awful and everything is chaotic. Yey!
When I was born my dad was 48. He played soccer with me and my brother until his early 70s. (this was in the nineties BTW).
With today’s advancements in medicine and senior care, that’s not an excuse anymore. You just have to take good care of yourself.
I’ll probably have Kids in my late 40’s or even early 50s!!! When my kid(s) are 18, they’ll be perfectly raised adults and well into their paths, so they won’t pay that much attention to me anymore (thank god).
That said, I plan to be a hot old hunk who will probably go well into his 70’s banging 40-50 yo hotties (and the occasional sugar baby), slapping the butts of the nurses and making everyone jealous of my past and present sexual stories. Just watch me!
Mr. BlackDragon
New Beta on the block, paying respect (betas are good at it).
Start reading your blog one week ago in commuter train to work. And it was like opening a new door of perception. Now I’m determined to face … How should I put it? … The Decline of Western Civilization … like a man!
Enough drama! đ
I myself have two kids and, no mistake, I love them, and until now, their just perfect kids. First was while NRE was high, so … just step the trottle, pal! … Second one has put us (and our pockets) on draging ass mode (like you have already figured out – 5. and 6. totally apply!) – Beta!
Because sex is “perceived” (commas, please!) by most women as “afective need” rather than “fisiological”, the result is … precisely! No point talk about Maslow trying to alter this “perception”. You’ll get plenty of woman logic, drama, the all package! đ
Helping at home like your day has 25 hours doesn’t help either! Women always know best on how to … pretty much everything … their children. Even if not, again, SP looks actively to keep it that way. You’ll just get bossed around … sometime in two diferent directions! (Ah! Woman Logic!). Additionaly (but this I start elaborating this week !!!) you helping her, only reinforces her “sense of helplessness”. In a word … FUBAR!
So, as far as I’m concerned I adopted this rule. If she’s too tired to … ironing … I’m too tired to … wash the dishes!
It broke my heart doing that to my “soulmate” (beta) last Saturday evening. (For those youngsters … better than figuring 8 out of 10 … picture yourselves, an ironing board and Saturday Evening toghether in the same … time space). When she finally dragged her ass from the couch to bath, then to kitchen … mayday! mayday! … then to bed … beta here thought “Here it comes, Les Miserables!”. Instead, I got laid … out of her initiative!!!!
This morning I just grabbed her head and whispered “Mouth!” … and she willingly “complied”!
BD! I’m in the Fucking Twilight Zone here, man!
I was 6 years into marriage when we realized I was shooting blanks. Instead of ending the relationship, I handled massive drama, which was really, really stupid. I wasn’t morally cuckolded (she had her own place) but was legally cuckolded, and only my ex wife’s high level of moral integrity prevented the state of Florida from garnishing my wages.
Stupid.
You want to bond with your kids. From age 5-10. Then a teenager has their own cool peer group at school they’d pick over their parent any day. That beautiful dressed chic you put on a pedestal for years start doing half ass lipstick and nails polish for the next 2 decades. You’ll work your manager job and come home nightly to her stay at home tv watching telling you how to best manage raising the kids. You let your kids go after school, she won’t. Fight. You let your kids get the haircut they want, she won’t. Fight again. You let you kids pick their own clothes, she won’t. Fight. You want you kids to take up a rough sport, she won’t allow it. Get ready for regular stressful fights for the next 20 yrs with your wife who you use to place so high on a pedestal. Only now she doesn’t bother to dress up sexy, she dresses down and unflattering. Lazy.
Hey Bd, perfectly timed article. Was wondering if you could list all the positives you’ve had from having kids.
My grandma recently became a foster mom last year and has had kids living with us. Personally, I have fun moments with them but find them annoying and a major burden. I only see the negatives right now. Granted I’m only 22 so I wouldn’t want kids for another 8 to 10 years. These reasons make me go against them
Extra money
Little sleep
Less freedom
More drama (with kids and their mother)
For anyone who’s had kids can you give me some positives to having them lol. I don’t see much and if so how did it change your life. Also, do you recommend adopting to avoid the first few years of hell.
BD talks about the cost.
In the UK, it’s similar at ÂŁ250k each child until the age of 21 and that’s just average. You have to factor in the opportunity cost lost for investment as well.  You could spend 21 years spending that half a million or if you invest that over 21 years imagine how much money you could have after that.
Huge cost for reduced happiness , no thanks.  I’m 37 and 5 years off being debt free and mortgage free.  Def won’t be having kids !!!!
Great topic and lots of good information here.
I cant say for sure that Iâll never have kids but I know I certainly enjoy being child free now.
Having had and raised two kids to young adulthood ahead of you Blackdragon, I cannot stress how right you are on every point in this article. And, everyone reading this (including you ladies) should heed well this advice. Unfortunately, I fear you’ll get more debate and argument than agreement with sage wisdom and confirmed experience.
Having kids is a crap shoot, even if you can afford to have them with the dream NAWALT unicorn woman, with all the money, power and status afforded a man. If you have any doubts about this, I point you to Ronald Regan and his shitty kids as an example of leaving a positive legacy through your kids is 50-5o at best.
Yep. Not only that, you’d need their other to be at least an 8 on the woman scale — and not just looks, but in every other department as well. Given the assessment of women by men here, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! Also, you’ll need to raise them in a environment,a culture, around peers, and educate them in a schools system (a major source of social influence) that’s at least an 8 out of 10. Again, where do you find all this together?
A child is a lifetime commitment. You can say they’re adults at 18 and responsible for themselves. And legally, you could make that case. But you’d also be an uncaring parent to just write off your kids because they’re an arbitrary adult. If that’s your take on kids, then you’re automatically disqualified from being ready to have them. You’re creating another human being, for fuck’s sake — a human being that will be on this planet 70, 80 or more years, and long after you’re gone. Kids are not lifestyle accessories, which unfortunately seems to be reason d’jour for having them, and the gold standard for the SP ingrained fulfilled life for the woman who already has it all (education, career, money, success). Well, actually, it’s worse. Grandkids!
I counsel men the same as you do on this question. And I’m astounded how strong the SP force is to procreate in Gen Y’s and Millennials, despite knowing what they know today about the decline and inevitable fall of western culture. There is such a strong “biologial imperative” to have your own kids for reasons ranging from Love (TM), religion, family pressure, and the idealistic crusade to leave one’s legacy for the future and carry on the family name. Ugh!
Men, if you really want to leave a legacy, become wealthy, donate much of your wealth to things that get a big plaque with your name of statue of your personal planted on campus, for future generations to largely ignore. Make sure you build an enterprise of hard-working men to protect, preserve and polish your image long after your gone. Case in point: If you visit Disney you’ll see a statute of Walt with Mickey in the park’s center in front of the castle, as he is its true king. Now, tell me the name of even one of his kids? His wife? Exacatly! Me neither. Hell, the info isn’t on his Wikipedia page!
If that weren’t enough, there are just too many people on planet earth and, you adding to that problem doesn’t help you, me, or anyone — especially your own future kids.
Here’s how you know I believe what I’m are saying. If I could go back 20 something years and make the choice again, I WOULD NOT HAVE KIDS!  I have also advised my kids not to have kids for any reason, and even strongly encouraged my son to get a vasectomy at the age of 18 so as not to have kids, especially accidentally. I would be a happier, wealthier and more free man as a result.
I love children, so I decided that I will become the perfect……uncle!
Yep! I’m going to follow the advice of grandparents everywhere and start with grandkids…..fuck around the next 15 to 20 years, then in my 60’s find a well preserved, rich widow.
I made the mistake of talking about my plan with females…..but, but, how will you have anything in common with her??? pfft, no problem, I’ll have traveled the world, climbed the mountains, taken in the cities and their women, grappled with many worthy opponents….no problem at all connecting with people!
Of course, I think one of BD’s most important pieces lays out what a man has to do once in his 40’s and beyond. It is a full time job keeping ones self in order, but good lord the benefits are huge. Outperforming men half my age on the mat and in the mountains is quite rewarding and an honest signal of fitness.
That was 22 years ago. Back then I was a young naive beta male full of Societal Programming.
It had been one of my goals throughout my early and mid twenties, to have two kids, one girl and one boy. I wanted them for emotional reasons, nothing I can clearly articulate beyond societal programming and obsolete biological wiring.
It made me less happy, overall, just like everyone else. It made their mother less happy too. It wasn’t the kids’ fault; I have two really good kids. It’s just the stress of having kids and the arguments it created in the marriage made things overall less happy, even when combined with the good parts. I analyze this here.
In terms of how it made me happy, I love kids and I really love babies. Some of my fondest memories are when my daughter was a baby and my son was around 7 or 8 years old. Really good stuff that I miss sometimes. But my overall happiness levels dropped a bit, sure.
To quote myself from this article I wrote about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s success in life:
Arnold waited until he was 40 before he started having kids. Let me repeat that, you bastards.
He waited until he was 40 to have kids.
He waited until he was 40 to have kids.
He waited until he was 40 to have kids.
What do I keep hearing from you guys? âBut Blackdragon, I donât want to be some old man who canât play catch with his son and is old when he graduates college wah wah wah!â Then god dammit, take care of your fitness so that you CAN play catch with your teenage son when youâre sixty. I promise you that unless I get hit by a bus, I will be more than capable of playing football when Iâm in my sixties and be a strong, healthy, vibrant, active man.
If Liam Neeson and David Hasselhoff and Sean Connery can do it, you can do it too. Stop with the fucking excuses. Iâve said this a thousand times and Iâm going to say it again: If you want kids, wait as long as possible to do so. 35 is the earliest you should think about it, 40 or 45 is better. Be like Arnold. Donât fuck this one up like I did.
The Alpha Male 2.0 should not be getting up in the middle of the night taking care of a baby, ever. Have the mother do that, or refrain from having kids. Again, read chapters 23 and 24 in my book where I explain this in detail.
2% Rule. I explain the “sperm thing as you get older” excuse in my book as well.
You really need to read my book dude. I’ve addressed all of your excuses before, and in great detail.
Again, NO, not if you’re Alpha 2.0. If you want kids, you need to explain to the woman you’re having kids with that 90% of the “overhead” of raising that kid will be her responsibility, including getting up every night dealing with screaming babies. If she doesn’t agree to this, you need to find a different woman to have kids with.
Your time can’t be spent getting up all night dicking around with kids. It needs to be spent working on your Mission and living your amazing life. Any woman who doesn’t understand that shouldn’t be your OLTR or baby momma in the first place.
Yeah, that’s the standard beta male co-habiting / parenting model. It will not create long-term happiness.
1. Emotional experiences that can only be had by having your own children. (Not many, but some.)
2. Pride in your kids when they get older and become successful (hopefully; if your kids turn out to be losers or average, you don’t get this).
3. Expanding your ability to relate to other kinds of people, including much younger people.
4. (If you’re a loser or a beta) – Living vicariously though the cool things you kids get to do that you can’t or aren’t allowed to do anymore.
5. (If you’re an Alpha 1.0 or religious or a right-winger) – Social and/or emotional validation for “being a man.” (“A real Alpha has children blah blah blah…”)
The best way to immunize your daughter against the feminism disease is to make sure she is physically hot. You do this by making sure that both you and the mother have good genes and are physically attractive yourselves, and then when your daughter is born, put her on an extremely healthy diet. Raise her to see taking care of herself as a reflexive habit.
I’m telling you, physical beauty is nature’s cure for feminism. Make sure she’s hot, and her chances of buying into that man-hating trash plummet to practically zero.
Huh? Raise him as an alpha 2.
Modest? What do you mean? You don’t want to raise him like a beta nice guy. Again, raise him as a sex-positive alpha 2.0.
Sex-positive alpha 2.0.
As I posted before, here’s a recent Reddit discussion where childless people aged 40+ reminisce on their choice:Â https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/7qc833/how_do_you_feel_in_your_40s_50s_and_older_after/
This in particular resonates with me:
Also the become-sixty-marry-a-widow-start-with-grandchildren trick is neat.
I did the best thing possible for my kids…I didn’t bring them into this world!
I am an Over-analyzing person, so the only reason I cannot find any comfort having kids it’s just the insane amount of mental-over-thinking over problems that could be happening to my child.
It’s not like the usual stuff like: “you just wanna the comfortable life yadda-yadda-yadda”.
I just don’t built for that mission, sorry.
@SuperBetaHiFi
Well done for finding BD’s stuff. Things can change a lot for you if you let go of SP and learn to become an Alpha. Sounds like you are already getting a small taste.
So a few thoughts:
First is that the problem isn’t that the world is overpopulated but that, by the time we are old men, the world will not have enough (young) people (and their vitality and creativity and drive). If you look at demographics, you can see why in 1980-2020, China was the land of opportunity, in 2000-2040, India is and will be, and after 2020-2040, Africa will be.
But from an individual perspective, yes, having kids is a definite cost drain*. In terms of happiness, well, when you have kids, your babies and toddlers are absolutely adorable and often funny. Lots of things they do can give you the warm fuzzies. My wife takes care of the child-raising aspects (change the diapers, though I may hold a leg every once in a while) and deals with them if they wake up at night (and I get to fuck other women as well with her OK). Even then, if I was looking at this logically, I’m not sure yet if having kids was better or worse. We’ll have to see (when they get older). Though kids do give you a longer-term view of things.
* BTW, BD, you hate socialism, but if there is a case for government intervention, it’s to socialize the production of babies. Because all societies need more babies (specifically, they need what babies become, which is young people), but in an incomplete welfare state (like the US), it makes absolutely no economic sense for most people to have babies. A more socialist welfare state (and a freer more liberal attitude) is also why the more socialist European countries are among the few first world countries that are actually procreating at close to replacement rate.
On second thought, I am glad I had kids because I wanted to have kids, and the reason for that is because I know I would have regretted not having kids when I was old if I hadn’t.
When you don’t want kids but she does, it totally makes sense for her to take 90% of the overhead of raising the kids. That I understand.
HOWEVER, when you really want kids yourself (8/10, as the requirement), how do you deal with the feeling of unfairness? You and her BOTH WANT the kid, it’s not fair for her to have to get up at night most of the time when you are being care-free and having sound sleep, especially if she has a day job herself.
It’s easy to say ”just find a different (OLTR-compatible) woman to have kids with”. Not many women will take that deal. It’s like finding a special needle in a haystack. Even if you find one, it probably takes so much effort and time that you’re very likely to fall into oneitis with that ”special” woman.
Assuming you (BD) and PF both really want to have a kid together, will she take the 90% overhead willingly? I think not.
Having kids is like “Ok, this is now what I am doing with my life”. It is a more serious decision than moving to another country, or getting married in the first place.
In the manosphere, people sometimes say that the thing that defines being male is combat, physical danger. Perhaps. But the thing that defines being an adult man is the stress and day-to-day responsibility, awareness of responsibility, of being a father.
People are often surprised when they ask my age. When they say “Wow, you don’t look X”, I reply, “Never been married, never had kids”. It is the thing that ages men, that gives men what they used to call ‘gravity’, that gives his face weight and seriousness.
Oh, it’s not a bad thing. Maybe it’s a good thing. And, of course, there are exceptions on both ends of the spectrum. But that’s what it is.
I’m 25, and constantly seeing the sadness & depression in my dad’s eyes even though 3 of his kids already over 18, because of the fact he has been beta for the past 30 years the moment he met my mom, he didn’t stand up, setting boundaries for the whole family, and keep avoiding problems. My mom is one of the classic bitches after i found red pill (keep complaining etc)
You know what? we kept getting shamed by lots of blue pillars/social convention saying ”you’ll die alone without raising kids when you got old.” and my answer is, fuck that shit! Put yourself always as priority, that’s what a real man does; that’s what an alpha male 2.0 does. Not what SP claiming what a real man is!
Hey BD, I don’t get one thing. You say that she should take 90% of the overhead. If a woman really want kids she will agree to whatever. I’m pretty sure that after 3rd sleepless night she will “have enough” of this and you sleeping like a baby when she is up at 4 am. She will “change her mind” and start forcing you to take 50/50, what she agreeded to in the past is not valid anymore in her mind – this is how women work.
How do you handle that?
Having kids for the good of society would be literally one of the stupidest things you could possibly do.
Incorrect. If you don’t want kids, you don’t have kids, period. You don’t acquiesce just because she’s willing to take 90% of the workload.
You’re paying for the kid (or most of it), she’s raising it. That’s fair. If she doesn’t think that’s fair, she would not qualify to have your kids.
If you’re poor and she’s rich, then that would be a different story, but that would be very unlikely (obviously).
Absolutely incorrect. That’s like saying it’s hard to find a woman who will let you fuck other women. You’ve got some Societal Programming to clean out.
If you tell a woman you’ll live with her, AND marry her (OLTR version of course), AND give her the babies she’s always wanted, AND pay for it or most of it, you will be shocked at what women agree to, particularly if you’ve maintained an Alpha 2.0 frame the entire time. It’s easy.
Then you’re a beta and a pussy, but that has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.
Correct.
I have never seen this happen in these types of marriages. Literally never. You’re just making stuff up to get worried about.
“Force” you? How will she “force” you to do anything? Again, are you a beta? A pussy? I guess if you are, then okay, she’ll force you. But if you’re an Alpha she can’t and won’t force you to do anything. (And if she does, you’re not an Alpha anymore.)
She can say whatever she wants. She can even threaten whatever she wants. But I’m not going back on what the agreement was, particularly something that significant. If that’s a deal-breaker for her, great, I’ll just tell her she can move out, I get 50% custody of the kid, and I’ll go find someone else to raise kids with. And yes, I’ll mean it and actually do it even if I love her; it’s not a threat or a bluff. I will not suffer long-term unhappiness nor damage to my Mission for any woman, period. No one has that right.
I could also make a joke about “Okay, Sweetie, sure, I’ll take care of the screaming baby at 2am, no problem. Tomorrow morning at 6am, you get up and you go to work from now on, and pay all/most of the bills around here. I expect all the bills paid up every month, and I’ll need lots of grocery money too. Have fun tomorrow morning while you’re at work and I’m raising our baby.”
The bottom line, as I’ve said before, is that women have every right to change their mind, and I have every right to kick them out of my house and go get serious with someone else if they do.
I was talking this issue with a woman days ago, and told her: Well, the baby will live with your parents/his grandparents, and they will back up his life financially as well.
She didn’t agree, but only on the “it won’t live with us”.
Of course, she’s in semi-NRE now… so these things have to be rechecked at later stages.
Where, outside of your dreams?
That’s the crux of the matter I think. They can blackmail you all the time â and of course, no promise and agreement about who will care for what will hold the test of a passing hour (no need for a day to pass, for females to have “forgotten”).
(Having an income lower than the baby’s mother may help reduce child-support risk, I assume).
BD, would you recommend a vasectomy for a single guy wanting to start living the Alpha 2.0 lifestyle? I know you recommend condom use, and I assume getting a woman pregnant while wearing a condom falls under the 2% rule, but given how devastating a consequence accidental pregnancy would be (as you mentioned — child support for at least 18 years), and how nice it would be to bareback it without having to wear a condom (granted, and then putting myself more at risk for STDs) — or at least, have the extra comfort of knowing pregnancy isn’t an outcome while wearing a condom — doesn’t it make sense to get one? As in, I see no downsides to getting a vasectomy (as I assume it could always be reversed if I wanted kids down the line), but I admit I’m no expert and am fairly naive/inexperienced, so definitely curious to get your thoughts.
I’m seriously thinking of getting one, pretty much for the reasons you say. I think I’ll aim to bank some sperm if I do, rather than rely on the 100% reversibility claims.
BD the stats show were in a baby bust cycle. Birth rates for all age groups of women under 30 fell to record lows recently(link below) mainly because of economy. It seem like this trend is not reversing any time soon as well as marriage rates. Would you bet on marriage and fertility rates to continue to go down throughout next decade in U.S and most other countries?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-22/millennials-have-ushered-baby-bust-cycle
Often, I read one of BDs articles and want to argue with him on some odd point or another. Â Then I realize it’s just societal programming messing with me.
Except this point. Â I couldn’t agree more.
Somehow I avoided this part of SP, and I’m not sure how. Â I was 8/10 on NOT having kids and never wavered from the time I was 11 or 12. Â Fear of getting some chick pregnant probably kept me a virgin for years. Â I really, really didn’t want to be a dad. Â I’m almost 50 now, and I don’t regret it.
The combination of biology and SP combined with NRE can be deadly. Â You need to think about this before you get in this spot, and then HOLD FIRM. Â Particularly if you WANT kids, because odds are you are gonna have to do extra when (not if) you get divorced. Â This is impossible to understand for a married beta dad who’s already giving 100%. Â My divorce broke me to bankruptcy, and my exes behavior post divorce has been eye opening crazy. Â I can’t imagine what life would be like if we had children.
Most of the time, I read BDs articles and feel a pang of “yep, I got that one wrong” from my SP laden married days or my post divorce dating days. Â This one makes me grateful I got a big part of it right, even if it was on accident.
If you follow the correct procedure I outline here.
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2014/08/24/vasectomy-pros-and-cons/
In the Western world, absolutely.
True of many people who read my content.
There have been many times I’ve seen a guy on a blog or forum try to argue with me, and as I read his rantings, I think to myself, “I know this guy is smarter than this.”
Societal Programming is very, very powerful. It turns smart people into raving idiots.
Everything you say is true, though much of this comes down to personality type. For LOTS of people, having kids and family is their number one value and mission and life and life without family/kids doesn’t even make sense to them bc it would not seem worth living.
For more introverted/independent people (mostly your readers) it’s a very different question. People should ask themselves how much they enjoy their family of origin and whether they liked living them or would want to live with them still…if you’re the type who couldn’t wait to get out of the house and away from your family when you graduated from high school, skip the kids. If you’re the type who cried out of homesickness your first year away, that’s totally different.
Also, consider pets. Parents usually disagree with this, but from what I can tell people get at least 80 to 90% of the joy/love/emotions from parenting their pets, at like 5% of the emotional or financial costs. Cats cost almosy nothing in money, attention, or freedom sacrifice, but you only get to hang out with them at home. Dogs are more like having a permanent 4 year old who can go with you and do stuff outdoors, and its always happy and excited to see you, but dogs are way way way more costly in money, effort, and attention than cats. Hardcore cat people probably shouldn’t have kids.
I have a dog and a cat and the dog is unbelievably expensive and seriously restricts my freedom and I have to plan everything out ahead of time to get the dog watched and make sure it’s happy and well behaved. I also absolutely love the dog, who is a bundle of pure happy cuteness. But honestly even the dog is kind of a draw on whether it’s worth it, whereas the cat is easily the best on a cost to benefit analysis of anything in my life. The cat is basically all live and cuteness and cuddles for practically free. The dog is literally 50 times the effort of a cat. And I think a kid is like a dog times 10. I also know plenty of parents who seem to love their cats/dogs almost as much as (or in some cases more than) their kids.
Another thing to consider is how much one enjoys feeling “needed”. I hate feeling needed and BD obviously does do, but plenty of people really crave being needed and depended on and are unhappy if they don’t feel that way.
P.S. My dad had one kid around 20, one around 30, and one in his 40s, and I disagree that that’s an ideal time to have them. One can be healthy athletic and vigorous throughout ones 40s and 50s but age 60 is really a major turning point in health, despite people’s hopes otherwise. More specifically, people who have kids after 40 tend to treat them more like a grandparent would, which is to say spoil them, and I don’t think the outcomes for the kid is very good. In fact I am pretty sure that the rise of very infantile, entitled, vulnerable, whiny younger people has a lot to do with a certain class who were all raised by parents in their 50s rather than 30s.
That said, it’s not the biggest deal. Worst case scenario is having kids in early 20s, divorcing, remarrying and having second round of kids with second spouse, which is fairly common and completely financially devastating. You better be damn rich and ready to work your whole life. If my dad hadn’t had that last kid he would’ve had SOOO much money, free time, extra homes and toys, etc. Instead he is almost 70, deaf, very much slowed down, and is still paying out his nose for his last kid. My mom and stepdad otoh (who didn’t do the second round of kids) are living the dream, carefree and basically their life is one big vacation/party full of travel and visits with friends.
Hey BD. Great article but I’m curious as to what you think about this study that keeps cropping up as I was doing my own research as to the validity of studies that have been done in this area.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/688892
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-happiness-doctor/201709/does-having-children-make-us-happy
While it bears out the people in the US are less happy overall by about 12%, other countries where there is a lot of social policies that are kid friendly the trend seems to be reversed. So the level of happiness is directly tied to social programs that are child friendly for both parents?
Incorrect. A few people are like that, not “LOTS.” My mom is like that. Being a mom was and still is literally her entire life and she would be horribly depressed if she never had kids, but my mom is an exception to the rule. Most people are not like this, including women.
Accurate. PF has a dog for this reason and one of my brothers with his de facto wife are never having kids, so they had dogs instead. I agree they’re less work and money than kids. But as to being work…
Correct. PF’s dog is a huge challenge, extremely high maintenance, and a non-stop source of problems. Although she loves it to death (and she really does love it), it’s also the biggest source of stress and guilt for her in her entire life. Because of all this, I think her net happiness gain is negative, but that’s just my opinion; it’s hard to gauge these things.
I like feeling needed, but I don’t need it. (Pun intended.) If I never felt needed it would be fine, but I do enjoy it on occasion when it happens.
You hate feeling needed because you’re a woman; if a man “needs” you, your attraction drops. But if a woman “needs” me, it kinda feels good. It’s a man/woman difference.
I have never seen any data to indicate this. Indeed I’ve seen the opposite; i.e. young parents fucking up their kids.
I’m quite convinced that society would benefit if the average person waited an additional 10 more years before having children. (Not that I care.)
Read this article I wrote here where I talk about self-reporting.
For example, if you ask socialist Europeans “How happy are you with your health care system?” they will usually say they’re “happy.”
But! If you start asking specific questions about how long they have to wait for doctor’s appointments, how much trouble it is to get a hold of their doctor, how hard or easy it is to set appointments and get care, etc, you get a very different set of answers answers that indicate exasperation or extreme annoyance, not happiness. Often they come up with things that non-Europeans would find intolerable.
I don’t have the time to read those studies you quoted, but you need to factor the concept of how weak self-reporting is when you’re asked about how happy you are about something you’re supposed to be happy about (like your kids, your culture, your country, etc).
(This works both ways too. Americans who say they’re less happy having kids are actually under-reporting how unhappy they are, because saying you’re not happy with having kids is directly against Societal Programming.)
BD,
Thanks for this. The androsphere has needed an article like this for a long time.
I have often thought to myself :
How badly do I want kids, and by extension grandkids : 8/10.
How badly do I want to fully avoid one or more out of divorce court Auschwitz, fatocalypse, and nagging :Â 10/10.
That made the decision straightforward.
BD, having kids young definitely messes up kids and increases everyone’s stress bc of financial and other pressures (such as the fact that you’re actually sacrificing more in terms of other fun you can be having during your precious youth). I didn’t say that bc I just figured it kind of goes without saying and everyone already agrees with it. I don’t know *ANYONE* who thinks having a kid under 25 is a good idea (with the exception of some conservative religious old guys trying to scam a young women into having their kids and those dudes are always clearly uninterested in anyone’s actual happiness).
It’s just my observation that one can also be too old so that parenting becomes too much like a grandparent role, and that the 30s are the sweet spot. Not like if you’re 41 having a kid it’s a big difference, but the older and more financially settled one gets, the more their children will naturally be spoiled. Part of it is bc older people are more willing to focus entirely on their kids. Like when I was an adolescent my dad had his own shit going on, he was working, doing lots of sports, dating, having his own life, and I never thought I was the center of the universe. But he was stable enough to be a good dad (which he wasn’t to my older sibling bc he was too young and not ready to become a dad). But with my little brother…by the time he was an adolescent my dad was an old man living entirely vicariously through and doing everything for him, which I think becomes more common with older parents, and my bro is pretty helpless and useless. I doubt there are studies bc it’s new that so many people are having kids at late ages. But in some coastal expensive cities having babies and toddlers in one’s 40s and 50s, using IVF or with the 2nd wife, is pretty much standard and those kids are exactly the snowflake sheltered ones everyone worries about. That’s just my observation, could be that it isn’t borne out by the data. I live in a place with a big tourism industry that caters to those people and see lots of kids with very old parents that are easily 2 decades older than the “local” parents and their kids are soft little helpless snowflake types. Could just be money, since older parents have much more of it, typically. So I guess maybe the point is that older parents will have to work harder at not over sheltering and spoiling their kids.
Really just not having a second round of kids after divorce would be a huge improvement for most people. You would be SO far set back in all your personal and financial goals of you had given in to the women that wanted to lock you down on that. Maybe if it’s the first and only kid after 40 it’s okay, though I still think 30s is more of a sweet spot balance, especially if one wants to enjoy grandparenthood. If you have your kid at 35 and they also have one at 35, you don’t get a grandkid til 70 and that’s pretty old and not an age you can count on still being in good health. If you wait til after 40 and your kid does the same then we’re talking 80 plus which is very elderly. Not that’s there’s any guarantee of getting a grandkid in the first place.
Couples with no kids who have dogs (and intend to keep it that way) has become massively more popular/common where I live, over the past few years. I pay about $500 a month just for dog daycare for one dog, lol…I don’t even want to know how much daycare for a child costs!
Great article and great comments. I definitely relate to the cats and dogs analogy: I hate dogs, so annoying, noisy, smelly and NEEDY! yuk. And I fucking hate feeling “needed”, even by a woman, it’s a huge turn off.
I am 36, reading this article it’s clear that currently my desire to have kids is a solid 0/10. I relate to every single negative point but I can’t even remotely relate to any of the 5 positive points BD gave about his experience having kids. And I hate babies, they’re so gross for me.
Also I am on top of all of that an environmentalist and I strongly believe that one of the best legacy a normal man (there are exceptional men such as Einstein or Elon Musk, etc… who can leave a real legacy to mankind, but over 99% of men are just normal people who won’t ever achieve anything noteworthy from a future generation standpoint) can do is to have a sustainable footprint, therefore not creating any other huge western resource waster lifestyle follower is something I can feel proud of subjectively.
If mankind was struggling to maintain its number as a specie, and/or with vast inhabited land and seemingly unlimited available resource like it was in the past, NOW that would be a completely different story, and I could feel a sense of duty and fulfillment in creating other human beings.
@BD, However, what do you think about waiting until being over 65 or 70 to have kids mostly as a mean THEN to keep a young woman arround for a few years?
The only exception for myself I can see is at a very old age, like over 65 or 70 years old (I take care of myself to grow old as healthy as possible and I also plan to refuse any ressucitation, curative treatment, test or whatever chirurgy, chemio, even antibiotics passed 75 years old to not extend crippled life and let whatever comes first bring me to death as explained here https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/). Assuming I have all the required money for that, I could imagine THEN getting OLTR married to some young woman and give her the child she’s been dreaming of. I feel this kind of marriage+kids game to keep a young woman aurround would be very selfish of me, but it could be somehow fair to them if I have enough money to leave to the child after I die.
@kryptokate – how did it end for your brother with the large cheated gf he had? You wrote about it in long distance relationships post and predicted it would end badly. Did it?
I used to try looking at all the survey data and figure out what parents really thought, but it is useless. There are lots of ways one can “play” at being a parent…getting a pet, babysitting kids, being an aunt/uncle, volunteering with an organization like Big Brothers/Big Sisters, teaching, coaching, or scouting etc. All those play forms of parenthood give you most of the benefits without the real downside of the inescapable, irrevocable weight of responsibility for your decision once you actually create a person.
But it’s so irrevocable and life changing that there’s no use in asking parents after the fact bc the reality is that they can’t get out of it and if they allowed themselves to wallow in that and focus on the negatives, our species wouldn’t exist bc everyone would’ve abandoned their kids and it just wouldn’t be sustainable. People make the best of their situation. So like BD says you better be really damn sure bc it’s not something you can get out of. But once you’ve actually done it, there’s no point in not believing it was for the best and a happy decision, bc otherwise you’ll be miserable and it’s too late. So you cant trust what people say bc there’s a psychological mechanism in place to stay positive.
The metaphor I’d use is like a trans man who thinks he wants to be a woman, but doesn’t realize it isn’t what he thought or expected until after he gets his dick cut off in bottom suegery, and then finds that it isn’t at all as fulfilling as he thought it would be. Well, too late then. No going back. So at that point, he might as well convince himself that he’s happy and that it was the right decision and a good idea. The only other option is to be miserable and full of regret, and what’s the point of that? If you make a decision or invest in something you cant get out of, it’s in your interest to believe it was good and positive and convince others if the same. Which is why you can’t really trust what people tell you on this, once their options are foreclosed.
If you find yourself trying to put off making a decision as long as possible (which is pretty standard), just accept that you don’t really want to do it. People naturally try to accelerate good things and defer bad things, which should reveal how much you don’t actually want kids if you’re trying to defer it til after everything else good in your life is over.
@ Jay well he proposed to her and they are engaged and he is only 22. He followed her far away for her job to a town where he knows no one and has nothing going on. He is entirely emotionally and financially dependent on her. Her career is on an upwards trajectory and he has nothing going for himself. So you tell me where this is going to end up, lol. I honestly am just hoping he doesn’t kill himself or go on a murderous rampage when she eventually dumps him. He is beyond deluded. Seriously what kind of 22 year old non religious US kid gets engaged nowadays!? It is going to be a nuclear bomb in his life the day she tells him she loves him but is not “in love” with him…
I have no doubt and absolutely agree with this. However, what if she has a good job, have good income herself and want to spit the bill 50/50 (with the kid’s ”overhead” 50/50 too)? Will you take the deal (like ”Ok, it’s actually not that bad”) or you dump her and go look for another OLTR who is more ”financial needy”?
I want to define the boundaries. When it comes to kids’ overhead, what is acceptable/compromise-able and what is deal-breaker?
I’m 31 now, my plan is having an OM marriage around 33-35 (with my current OLTR, if she can last). We will adopt a Corgi or some kind of dog, play around with it, experiment parenthood for a few years until 37-38, then decide if we should have kids then.
Maybe a post on ”The Decision on Whether or not to adopt a pet” could be interesting.
“30s” is too general. Age 30, 31, 32 is way, way too soon to have kids. I don’t consider modern-day males as adults until they hit age 34 anyway. (Read this.) I have said that if you wait to age 35, that might be okay if you make plenty of money by then and have you’ve had sex with a lot of hot women by then. This doesn’t describe most 35 year-old men though. (Shit, it didn’t even describe me at 35.)
No.
Just like I told the guy above, that having kids for the “good of society” is literally the stupidest reason to have kids, not having kids for the “good of society” is the stupidest reason to not have kids.
The effect on society, positive or negative, should not factor in any way towards your decision on whether or not to have kids. It should be about you and your life. Society will take care of itself, and if it doesn’t, then it deserves what it gets. Live your life!
It would depend on many factors, particularly your financial position at that age. As I said in the article, I have a second follow-up article that covers odd and unusual scenarios where having kids when you don’t really want them might be acceptable.
I would only even consider such a thing if she literally made the same amount of money that I do (or more), and planned to maintain that income for the rest of her life like I do, and had literally zero debt like I do, and now we’re officially into a fantasy hypothetical, and I don’t do fantasy hypotheticals.
Haha, no. Too off-topic. Kryptokate can write that for Girls With Game. đ
In case that wasn’t clear, more than 90% of my decision to not currently have kids is driven by the fact that I personally feel no desire whatsoever to have any, quite the contrary I find this idea repulsive and hellish.
The environmental argument on top of this personal repulsion against the idea of having kids, is line with that decision, but doesn’t drive it. It’s pushing in this direction with less than 10% of the total force.
@kryptokate – thanks. Yeah sounds like there will be trouble ahead.
BD does PF pay you rent? Many women live rent free in man’s home, but pay for other expenses and brag about being indeendent. Imo that still means it’s closer to 1950s than 1970s relationship as rent is the biggest expense. A post on that would be nice
Overall am I right that you prefer 1970s oltr if no kids, and 1950s oltr if with kids?
@Marty
Small taste and already punch drunk đ
That’s how powerful this stuff is.
No, but that’s mostly because I don’t pay rent or a mortgage payment. My house is paid for.
I know. I addressed those women here.
(PF has never bragged about being independent to anyone, even though she largely has been for most of her adult life. As usual, the women who really are independent don’t need to bring it up or brag about it.)
No. I don’t prefer or dislike one or the other. As long as I can live my life as a free Alpha 2.0 I don’t care much about those details.
Thanks BD
i am not saying that alpha male 2.0 parenting is impossible but I know of no one ever doing it.
work,social circle or military, I have never gotten even a hint that the guy had not caved into beta male ways and was really living alpha
The only celebrity I can think of that came close to Alpha would be Prince Charles, but his two sons are very Beta and seem proud of it
Hollywood praises men for beta male parenting so even these guys do not create
alpha male 2.0 lifestyles
..eye opening post
Question for Blackdragon :
I agree with this on a bottom-up basis :
But on a top-down basis, doesn’t this mean that too many people are currently having kids, and that only 20-30% of people should have kids? How many people are really at 8/10?
I know we don’t care about society per se, but doesn’t this lead to a total fertility rate of just 0.4 to 0.6, when replacement is 2.1?
The average age would become very, very high under this model, and governments will simply import a huge number of immigrants from foreign cultures, who won’t want to pay for old Westerners.
Perhaps an academic discussion. But it is interesting that for even replacement-level fertility, a lot of people who should not have kids have to do it.
I have never thought of Prince Charles as embodying an alpha lifestyle. Out of interest, how so?
In any case, his situation and the circumstances of his life are so atypical, even among celebrities, that I don’t know that any generalisations can be drawn from his life?
Since only 1-2% of men are Alpha 2.0, and most of them never get married, I’m not surprised.
I have seen many husbands remain Alpha 1.0 long-term in their marriage, but yes, going beta in a marriage is indeed the norm.
Read this.
@Roberto
Prince Charles as married Alpha 1.0/2.0
monagamy? Never to be taken seriously,kept long term Ltr with Camila for whole marriage
did zero housework,
all toddler and infant care done by staff or wife
never got up at night for crying baby  child slept in separate room
no diaper change no midnight trip to emergency room
no mini van driving
no paternity leave
no bragging about beta male behaviors or attitude
child or wife did not prevent business trip or vacation
upset when wife got favorable attention public notice
used male logic to try and straighten out wife…failed
wife initiated divorce
turned hobby,organic gardening,into profitable business
expert amateur on traditional architecture an interest
no midlife crisis
kept his frame
I find this article and the comments incredibly depressing. With white western people increasingly thinking in this way, the future of native Europeans and their American counterparts really does look bleak. It’s pretty obvious that 3rd worlders in the West (and outside it) have no such reservations – they seem to have 3 kids at a minimum, and they don’t hang around forever to get round to it. Increasing numbers of Europeans now giving up on parenthood only ensure that the children of those who did not, will find themselves even more of a minority in their homelands as they grow up. These sentiments and view of children as nothing but a burden is a symptom of a sick and selfish society. It’s pure nihilism. Replication along with survival is a core human drive. How else, other than sick, can you define a species so reluctant to reproduce and thus ensure its own survival?
While Westerners did this to themselves. It wasn’t like Africans, Mexicans, or Muslims invaded European / Western countries and forced them at gunpoint to go embrace big government, socialism, the welfare state, endless stupid wars, alimony, misandry, and political correctness. Western white people did that. They shit in their own bed, now they have to sleep it in it. I have no sympathy for them. You shouldn’t either.
Read this.
Yep. Read what I just said. And whose fault it is.
Oh, the human species will thrive, don’t worry about that. It will just look a lot more brown.
@ kevin: thanks!
“While Westerners did this to themselves. It wasnât like Africans, Mexicans, or Muslims invaded European / Western countries and forced them at gunpoint to go embrace big government, socialism, the welfare state, endless stupid wars, alimony, misandry, and political correctness. Western white people did that. They shit in their own bed, now they have to sleep it in it. I have no sympathy for them. You shouldnât either.”
I say this as a general fan of your blog: you’re pivoting now. You cited 6 reasons not to have kids but only *one* of them, being fleeced for alimony, corresponds with anything you’ve said just here, i.e. western whites ‘shitting in their bed’. The rest are purely selfish reasons. You’re justifying letting Western Civ collapse with the excuse that Western Civ has already collapsed, but this is intellectually dishonest. You are the cause, not the symptom. Aside from point 3 (which poses *some* risk, but is absolutely not a certainty, especially if you don’t choose a bitch for a wife) the other 5 reasons have nothing whatever to do with Western cultural collapse. I see nothing but selfishness, for which you seem to be looking to place blame elsewhere.
Incorrect. Reasons numbers 2, 3, and 5 are directly related to Western society collapsing. The other three are indeed for individual reasons, what you would call “selfish” (and what I call “smart”).
Reason 2: Children being expensive is because of monetary inflationary tactics of the government that has devalued our currency, and government intervention in the educational and health care systems further increasing prices. It was not expensive at all for a middle class man to have kids in the 1950’s, but today it’s exorbitantly expensive.
Reason 3: The family court systems were not nearly as oppressive and anti-man and anti-father 30 or 40 years ago as they are today. Not even close.
Reason 5: Having problems in your marriage back then the divorce rate was only 8% was a perfectly workable problem. Having problems in your marriage today in a collapsing left-wing empire when the real divorce rate is 70% and climbing means terrible long-term damage to a man, and not worth the risk.
Western collapse is indeed a core factor in many of these issues. Do you seriously think I would be saying all of these things if it was 1950 and America and the West was on the rise? Do you seriously think the divorce rate jumping from 8% to 70% has nothing to do with Western collapse? Do you really think we men should not modify our behaviors based on these titanic changes around us?
Please explain to me, with specifics, how I am the cause of Western collapse.
Particularly considering I wasn’t an adult until 1990 when much of this damage had already been done, and this blog didn’t even start until 2010 when the collapse had already been fully set into motion.
I can’t wait for your answer.
I place blame where it belongs: the voters of Western countries, who, both on the left and right, are addicted to voting for big government, pro-welfare-state, warmongering corporatists. I haven’t voted for any president who has won the presidential election in over 25 years, so you certainly can’t blame me. But if it makes you feel better to think all this is my fault, that’s hilarious(I didn’t realize I had that much power over the world), but you’re welcome to your insane viewpoint.
“Reason 5: Having problems in your marriage back then the divorce rate was only 8% was a perfectly workable problem. Having problems in your marriage today in a collapsing left-wing empire when the real divorce rate is 70% and climbing means terrible long-term damage to a man, and not worth the risk.”
All you’ve done here is turn your original reason 5 into a repetition of reason 3.
“Please explain to me, with specifics, how I am the cause of Western collapse.
Particularly considering I wasnât an adult until 1990 when much of this damage had already been done, and this blog didnât even start until 2010 when the collapse had already been fully set into motion.
I canât wait for your answer.”
I never said you are the original cause of Western collapse (and I know you have kids) but your take is ‘it’s all irreversibly fucked; just opt out’. The West may be collapsing, but it has not yet collapsed. The process is ongoing. How do we fight back against socialism, feminism, globalism, unchecked mass 3rd word immigration? Aside from voting (the only power we have politically), we fight back by siring the next generation and raising them the right way, that’s how. It’s the only way to salvage anything. But by advising men precisely against this, yes, you are *specifically* contributing to the ongoing collapse of the West. I stand by that 100%.
That is not my take, and you need to re-read the article. I said multiple times that if you want to have kids, by all means, have them, just do it intelligently while aware of real-world problems and limitations. I am not a MGTOW and I am not “against” people having kids. I am for long-term cohabitation with a woman and building a family, if that’s what you really want and you aren’t delusional about it. Read items 1 and 2 here.
Irrelevant. The collapse can’t be stopped (other than possibly a tech revolution).
You don’t, because you’ll just end up wasting your time and your life. Read this.
Voting doesn’t work anymore, as I’ve demonstrated perhaps hundreds of times over at my other blog.
It’s way too late for that. You and people like you are are vastly, vastly outnumbered by all the single mothers, third-worlders, and white left-wingers procreating.
Incorrect. It can’t be salvaged (other than possibly a tech revolution). There is no social or political solution to Western collapse. I know that’s hard to hear, but those are the facts.
I’m telling men how to best react to the collapse that is happening around them that is not my doing. If you seriously think men should ignore everything going on around them and proceed blissfully like it’s 1950 and just get traditionally married, have a bunch of kids, try to be a good dad, vote for Republicans, and hope it all works out, then you are advising men to go down one of the most dangerous life paths a modern-day man can take. If you think that’s a great idea, then great, but I think that’s a huge disservice to men to recommend such a thing.
Instead, a man should either refrain from having kids, or have kids only if he really wants them and does what I recommend here to protect himself (and his kids) as best he can within real-world problems and limitations that exist when living in a collapsing left-wing empire.
The collapse is happening regardless of what you or I do. I can’t make it worse, nor can I make it better. I don’t have that kind of power, and frankly, neither do you. Focus on your own life and your loved ones instead. Or, just be angry for the rest of your life about a Western culture that clearly doesn’t want to exist anymore and can’t be saved (because it doesn’t want to be). The choice is yours.
While I appreciate your points (and have always known where you stand) the position is far too nihilist for my liking. It’s widely known that there is an inherent joy to having children – they can bring real happiness, especially when they’re small, and give a man a real sense of purpose. You say focus on your loved ones – well, after your parents go, who are your loved ones? Only your girlfriend / harem? Create loved ones, then focus on them – as Jordan Peterson says, what else are you going to do when you’re old? Anyway, appreciate you engaging. Cheers from the UK.
Incorrect again. My position is that men should take care of their families while following their Mission, something that has deep meaning to them, and likely something that will help make the world a better place while pursuing their own desires and living a wonderful and fulfilling life. My views are the opposite of nihilism, and nihilists hate me so much that I actually had to ban all nihilists from this blog a few years ago.
Half correct. Children provide men with isolated moments of happiness, not a consistent increase in overall happiness. The data on this is empirical and undeniable. Read this.
My wife, my children, and my grandchildren. But if I had no children it would be my wife and my close friends. Read this.
Jordan Peterson is usually accurate but on that he’s factually incorrect. Read this and this.
You clearly have not read very much of my stuff since you are making these blatantly incorrect statements and asking these obvious questions that I’ve addressed in great detail many times before. I strongly suggest you do some more reading at this blog (the archive is here).
Just because the left-wing is wrong doesn’t mean your right-wing Societal Programming is right. You’ve got to do your best to clean out those falsehoods and talking points and get objectively rational. Or else you’ll never have a shot at being long-term happy.
(Though if you’re a true traditional conservative, you may not care.)
[C.Lo, your story pretty much mirrors mine. I vividly recall being a teenager and fearing knocking some girl up. It definitely played a role in not getting sexual experience back then, since I am not shy.]
I have always known I did not want kids or get married. I like to interact with children from time to time but they strike me as a huge responsability. This is a bit of projection on my part, but the more I read in the manosphere, the more I find the commonalities: individualistic/introverted people, with a touch of narcissism, logical thinkers, a bit obsessive sometimes, extremely long-term planners (the idea of “Mission” for instance)… People like this probably don’t make the best parents.
Most people just amble through life, and truth be told, they are sometimes mentally healthier because of it. We don’t. How many people take birth defects into account when thinking about parenthood? I couldn’t help but smirk when BD noted it. At the end of the day, a lot of psychological advice is about turning a blind eye to reality.
Finally, don’t forget that traditionally children were unashamedly considered as family “assets”. My own great-grandfather used to boast about the fact that the more kids he had the richer he was.
I was very political early on, and very patriotic. I often fantasized about dying for my country, and becoming one of its “great men”. Even when I knew I did not want kids, I still pondered having them out of patriotism, since our fertility rate is low where I live. When I told my parents about this they did not get it at all. Neither do most people.
One day you have to give up, and understand how truly different you are. You can not fix the world.
When I was born, my mom was 20 and dad was 22. They never saw their way financially and that alone put doubt into my mind if I ever wanted to children. My ex (staunchly Catholic) said she wanted us to have 3 kids. I wish her future husband well with the grocery bill. đ
Here’s a collection of horror stories from people who found out the hard way that parenthood is not for them:
https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/wiki/regret
So yeah,BD is absolutely correct about this,and it would behoove you all to listen to him on this issue.
I myself have no plans of ever having children,but its not just because of my desire for freedom in my life,it is also because my family bloodline has inheritable genetic diseases that I would never want to pass on to someone else. In the very,very tiny chance that I ever “change my mind” in the future,I see myself adopting(though I would only do this in my 40’s or much later on,as per BD’s advice)
Kids? Ugh, no.
As always, BD (long-time lurker, first-time commenter here), you’re spot on the money. There was once a time I was one of the men you discussed: the type who would say âEhâŚâ and shrug if asked if he wanted children. In my twenties, across two LTRs, I agreed to have them, even when my heart clearly wasnât in it. My opinion changed from a “meh” to a hard no and still I told everyone involved (girlfriend/wife, parents, etc.) that kids would be fine.
Luckily, I dodged the bullet both times and, after divorcing my wife, had the snip (i.e. came to my senses). I canât imagine how miserable my life would be now had I been lumped with little âuns, and I was an idiot for not being honest with myself or those women.
That being said, my brother is delighted with his first and trying for his second. Iâm happy for him.
Plus it takes the slack off me at family gatheringsâŚ
Whoops, that should’ve read “gives me some slack…”
Oh well.
Where’s the advice for people who have already made the error before finding your blog? Should I just resign to the fact I ruined my life at 28 years of age? (I’m 30 now and my daughter is almost 2). Is there a way to adopt the alpha 2.0 lifestyle when you already have a kid? Before I found your blog (and still now), I lived with many beta male traits from growing up around a beta father. I want to change that; I want to improve my body, fuck lots of women, have open relationships and quite honestly, dump my partner whom I don’t even love. But there’s also the hard-hitting realization that even though I didn’t truly want kids, I love my daughter and want the best for her in life. Can the Alpha 2.0 lifestyle coincide with being a good single parent?
I adopted my Alpha Male 2.0 lifestyle when I had TWO kids. And my kids turned out great.
So yes, you can.
Nice to hear your kids turned out great. Any advice for going through with the breakup? We’re not married, and my partner is not even from my country, although she has lived here for a couple of years. The big concern is that when I end it, she fucks off home with my daughter and I’ll have to fly 10 hours any time I want to see her. It would be a lot easier to dump her without this risk.