Everyone claims it's the cost, but poor people used to have kids constantly. When I lived in Baltimore the guy on my block grew up there. They had 12 kids in a ~1100 sq foot row home with two bedrooms and 1 (or no?) bathroom. You can find similar stories everywhere.

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Spooky23 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Kids are cheap when you are poor because you aren’t seeking status. A home in a highly desirable suburban school district won’t support 12 kids in the lifestyle that people demand in those places.

Whoever has custody of the kids is fine. The social services benefits scale. They won’t get rich, but they’ll eat. People will be OK. The only people who lose are stupid men who have multiple children with multiple women.

Once you have a little cash, the formula changes completely.

	▲	WarmWash an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You also have the state which pays for most of the top line expenses of having kids. Once you start making money, those benefits don't fade, they instantly disappear entirely.

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m_fayer 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We've gotten smarter, to our detriment.

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laughing_man 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If you fail to pass on your genetics, are your really smarter?

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everdrive an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Potentially. You're mixing "fitness" with "intelligence" -- there's no guarantee that "intelligence" will guarantee fitness.

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wtetzner an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That depends on whether or not you value passing on your genetics.

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cess11 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Are you implying homosexuals et al are somehow inherently dumber?

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laughing_man an hour ago | parent [-]

No, I'm responding to a comment.

	▲	pixl97 20 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		And other people are judging your comment as dumb and somewhat misunderstanding of genetics/fitness.
	▲	cess11 6 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Right, and you seemed to imply that smartness can be measured in how many live copies of one's genes one manages to produce.