Based Camp - Is 5 Kids Really Easier & Cheaper Than 2？

00:00:00.000 the incremental cost of each additional kid because i think people might be really surprised

00:00:03.980 there was a study done on this and it shows i think it's like after four every additional kid

00:00:09.060 costs on average about a thousand dollars a year so not a lot in an article called the marginal

00:00:16.040 cost of children in the new york times archive by the time you get to kid three you have fallen

00:00:21.020 from a cost of around fifteen thousand dollars a year for one kid to well under three thousand

00:00:27.540 dollars a year and so you can see how you get down to like one thousand extra a year 800 extra a year

00:00:32.600 when you get like four kid number five the costs just drop really dramatically and and the waste

00:00:39.060 that you have when you're having a few kids keep in mind you still need to buy all the shit you know

00:00:43.700 whether or not you're having a ton of kids or a few kids so you know the next time you have a kid

00:00:48.920 no baby toys it's it's no you know no no toddler toys no new swings or high chairs or bibs or plates

00:00:59.640 or bottles or sippers or every time we buy something for one of our kids that's being

00:01:06.300 used by like a huge chain of kids after them would you like to know more anyway hello simone it is

00:01:13.380 wonderful to talk to you today so we did this video on dinks right and we're like dinks are actually good

00:01:17.900 right because they are we don't want these people having kids they're not going to be good parents

00:01:22.320 probably not good for the gene pool so let's march them into their sweet good night all by themselves

00:01:27.420 now we got some interesting we got some interesting comments on that video and and one i wanted to do

00:01:34.040 a conversation about well and i've seen this with other people right like the core point we made in

00:01:39.360 the dink video or one of the points that we made is that you know while we pity dinks the people we pity

00:01:44.580 more than dinks if it was only one or two kids because it's all of the costs of kids and none of

00:01:48.560 the real benefits of kids well you get some i mean you get like the the shallow masturbatory feeling of

00:01:54.000 i have a kid that the dinks don't get and like you get to experience them and spend time with them which

00:01:58.680 is nice but you don't get like the genetic or cultural effects right you know you're not really

00:02:03.200 contributing to a solution in a big way and and it's actually harder we argue like like and for us

00:02:08.420 it's very obviously harder it is it is much harder to have fewer kids than more kids totally and more

00:02:14.400 stressful and way more stressful and we need to talk about why this is the case and in many ways

00:02:19.180 you know we immediately saw it in the question that they're asking us about this it's like

00:02:22.300 well i have two kids but like i don't know how i'm gonna afford college i'll read the comments there

00:02:27.980 were there were two comments that sort of inspired this so one person said i have two kids but i think i

00:02:32.320 need to make more money before i go for number three my mother-in-law is already very against her

00:02:37.200 daughter having another so i was waiting till my economic situation changed to go for for three

00:02:42.140 but should i i know i want three because that's above replacement level but what are the economics

00:02:46.900 of kid numbers at three four five and crazy numbers like 10 then someone else also answered i want more

00:02:53.360 of this conversation to currently have two but would love four but don't want to reduce the quality

00:02:58.380 of life for the children i have i.e vacations private school etc this is a very interesting conversation

00:03:04.400 that's the answer there and this is this is why higher numbers of kids become much easier because

00:03:10.840 when you get to the higher number of kids you realize that a lot of these things that you thought

00:03:15.380 was necessary for your kids quality of life was really more about your own personal vanity than the

00:03:20.700 kids actual or societal details yeah i think this understanding that private school for example

00:03:26.040 is really good for your kids or necessary for your kids or that like vacations where you fly

00:03:32.320 somewhere are good for your kids or necessary for your kids like i i remember this like you're like

00:03:37.940 you had relatives who are making this huge deal about flying their sons to italy and how they were

00:03:44.900 going to expose them to so much culture and this was going to be so formative for them and they were

00:03:50.020 all young teens at that age they were like yeah you know they're old enough to really appreciate it

00:03:54.240 culturally and they went and like all they wanted to do was eat at the hard rock cafe

00:04:01.160 every freaking day they're just like please just let me eat at the hard rock cafe like i don't really

00:04:06.360 want to be here like they were not enjoying it they didn't get anything out of it and so this idea

00:04:10.780 to us that like oh well air travel and like really expensive well i think what it's important to

00:04:17.560 remember was was travel is travel became associated with status for a period because of course you know

00:04:22.080 if you can afford to travel you're wealthier your higher status and so people use it to affirm for

00:04:26.760 their self their high status was i think out really reflecting on whether or not it's this great

00:04:33.480 beneficial thing to them we talk about life stages and i think that there are specific life stages where

00:04:38.980 travel brings you a great deal of satisfaction um and unfortunately these are also your formative

00:04:44.800 stages of life so they're also when you're likely to be you know i'd say teen like late teens

00:04:51.120 through college yeah and then like two years out of college like that range is when you are in you

00:04:57.340 know from an evolutionary standpoint that's when you're leaving your family of course you're going

00:05:01.560 to be biologically rewarded for engaging in exploratory behavior that is both expanding your

00:05:07.660 your concept of the world but also going out and surveying new lands and everything like that

00:05:12.840 because this is you know people who had this instinct to go out and do this during that period of their

00:05:18.440 life yeah when it spread further and had more offspring ultimately than people who did it so

00:05:23.320 it makes sense this is a hard-coded segment of our life but the problem is is that it's also around

00:05:29.220 the age when many people are solidifying their identity so in the same way that during that age

00:05:34.220 often people will think that kids are gross like when they're a teenager that they have this like

00:05:37.820 biological instincts young kids are gross because they're biologically hard-coded to as a teenager

00:05:41.960 not be interested in young kids you know they're trying to find a partner and start having kids

00:05:46.160 right so they they see the young kids is is gross and they don't want to be overly involved in

00:05:49.640 child care that makes perfect sense right but they're building their identity then and so then

00:05:54.380 they they work into their identity young kids are gross without realizing that that's like a cycling

00:05:58.160 pre-coded genetic thing for that specific age range and it's the same with traveling you know

00:06:03.220 and travel during that time you know like your gap year you know after your your young education

00:06:08.020 before you start fully working or you're taking a period then to be a digital nomad i think that makes a

00:06:14.140 lot of sense it is something i'd encourage our kids to do early in their life also there are many

00:06:18.140 financially sustainable ways to do that if mommy and daddy can't pay for it for example you can

00:06:22.720 get a job abroad you can get an internship abroad you like i did a lot of ultra low-cost backpacking

00:06:29.400 and everyone i knew doing it was you know less of hitchhiking i hitchhiked around south america i

00:06:33.480 hitchhiked around europe yeah when i was 13 i i stayed in a hostel and worked volunteered for an

00:06:39.080 environmental center and like you know they i i didn't have a food stipend or anything but i spent

00:06:44.140 under ten dollars a day for sure on like all my expenses including like having my laundry done for

00:06:49.400 me it was very luxurious but think about what a trip like that cost was kids right you go to the

00:06:56.360 same area you're not going to be able to spend like even for your kids you can't spend ten dollars a

00:07:01.140 day only because then you have to get the types of foods that they like and stuff like that oh no yeah

00:07:05.600 no no no if you're doing this as a family it's ridiculous but i think that you know that's the

00:07:10.260 thing is you know there are lots of there are lots of things that when you have zero one or two kids

00:07:16.340 you assume you have to do for each child and they're inherently unsustainable and they're things

00:07:21.320 also that families never really did in history and now it's like kind of ridiculous that they did

00:07:27.380 i mean okay so for example wealthy landed gentry would send sons to travel but not like every

00:07:37.040 summer they would maybe send them on a world tour as like a big thing and by the way these kids

00:07:42.400 ultra wealthy landed gentry which i think today is very similar to a gap year which most people can

00:07:48.000 find a way to make work for their kids exactly so that is but that is one trip and what most people

00:07:52.840 i think have in mind is like well every year or every other year we're all going to fly to italy

00:07:57.600 or we're going to fly to florida and like stay at a resort or something like that and that's it's

00:08:03.300 just one it doesn't really help anyone and two it's not really sustainable also you and i

00:08:06.800 you're explaining to like your future kid well you and i have traveled extensively in in both

00:08:13.280 very very rough and also very very luxurious formats we've seen families travel we've seen

00:08:18.620 individuals travel no one's having that much fun like this is also just not it's not people do it

00:08:26.400 definitely as you're saying and i think this needs to be emphasized for a self-perception thing for a

00:08:32.340 social class signaling thing and i also think also what we're seeing as as people who own a business

00:08:38.020 in the travel industry we're seeing a shift in the travel industry where it's very clear

00:08:43.500 that people can't really afford to travel anymore like the unit economics are working out like i think

00:08:52.000 for a while travel was more heavily subsidized and people were able to go on what seemed like very

00:08:56.700 luxurious travel trips for low costs and those days have come to an end post-pandemic flights cost a lot

00:09:03.100 more and people are now still trying to make this vision work but they're getting on less and less

00:09:10.200 comfortable flights they're suffering more and more on their trips because they're getting worse

00:09:13.820 services they can't afford as much and then they're just getting really super disappointed and we're

00:09:18.600 seeing this throughout the travel industry and this comes to this point that we're just going to keep

00:09:23.160 emphasizing in this is the thing that you realize as you have more kids the thing that makes it so much

00:09:28.620 easier once you get well above two kids is you accept that oh i don't need to do all the things i

00:09:37.320 thought i needed to do it it forces you to there's this thing in fighting games actually so we're

00:09:44.440 talking about like like okay so there's these fighting game communities right like you're like

00:09:48.320 street fighters or something like that where they'll play games against each other and there's

00:09:52.560 these moves that you can learn like honda doing the whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa thing just over and

00:09:58.500 over and over again where you're spamming a certain move and this can work really well up to a certain

00:10:04.440 level of of opponent or difficulty um but as soon as you get to an opponent that knows how to beat

00:10:12.420 this like a certain level difficulty opponent people who were overly spamming these simplistic moves to

00:10:19.120 win end up not being able to develop as players because there is such a huge gap between where they are

00:10:27.220 right at that moment and the the the opponent who they were facing was right like like when they get out of this

00:10:34.000 difficulty trap so they're now way below everyone who's at like a similar elo rating to them which is like a the

00:10:40.000 difficulty rating this is kind of similar with kids you need to reach one either you reach a point in which you're

00:10:47.640 kicked out of this you know stupid way of having kids that our society does it today and you're like oh this is

00:10:52.720 unsustainable i need to find a different cultural way of relating to kids but when you go into kids

00:10:58.240 and this is what's really interesting you know like while kid number one was hard for us kid number two

00:11:01.780 was actually fairly easy kid number three was fairly easy and i think that if we had incrementally been

00:11:06.440 adapting with every kid we would have been like the guy who was spamming that simple move just because

00:11:11.340 we had the money to afford it at the time um where instead we're like okay you like starting with kid

00:11:17.300 number two every kid we're going to be raising as if we were raising seven kids like how do we

00:11:22.000 economically make this work if we're raising seven kids and so we make very very very different economic

00:11:28.540 decisions around everything we're doing with kids and these economic decisions and and social decisions

00:11:35.100 in terms of how we're interacting with them and everything like that like how do i make this economically

00:11:39.020 viable is is where we're getting these these big advantages in terms of it being very very very much

00:11:46.740 easier and so the the core thing that you keep seeing is how do i have kids without sacrificing

00:11:53.320 x or y or z or d and it's like well you should have sacrificed those things long ago they don't matter

00:11:58.220 as much as you think they matter like really or they're harmful like private school for example that

00:12:02.960 another example given in the comment uh some of the convinced to hate you like send them to private

00:12:09.260 school if you're a rich person yeah we've heard multiple parents um who are well resourced to

00:12:14.600 sent their kids to private school because they were able to you know they had the privilege of doing

00:12:18.620 it and often they only had one kid though many of them you know also had many kids and they just

00:12:23.180 had more like the money to pay for it they now hate private school they think it was you know

00:12:28.620 alienated their children from them and and robbed them of their culture and made their kids hate them

00:12:33.380 like private school is not necessarily this really good solution for your kids it was great it was it was you

00:12:41.120 know i would not have done any better in a private school yeah and i don't know i i went to private

00:12:46.500 school i went to boarding school it doesn't add that much i i don't know a single person in the last

00:12:52.000 five years that i've met like i know some older parents who would have said yeah private school

00:12:55.300 was great for my kids i don't know anyone recently who said that private school was good for their kids

00:12:59.180 i know a lot of people complaining about private school i've heard a lot of horror stories about

00:13:04.520 what's happened to people's kids at private schools recently but if you are sending your kids to

00:13:08.880 private school you you need to like recontextualize what you're really sending them to well no so i i

00:13:15.100 do think that a lot of people especially in this community are thinking about like sending their

00:13:19.420 kids to classical schools because they don't want them to go to a progressive school so they're

00:13:23.240 sending them to private schools that are catholic schools or like there's some form of classical

00:13:27.760 education they don't know they haven't talked to people whose kids have gone to catholic schools

00:13:31.900 recently these are just as progressive as everywhere else these there are some genuinely

00:13:37.600 religiously conservative schools and they can be pricey but i mean i think we also make the argument

00:13:41.600 that like a good homeschooling program and we're also designing one for our own kids that you know

00:13:46.660 hopefully will be made available to other families this year too you can yeah super cheap you can have

00:13:53.240 elite affordable education you just have to you know be resourceful and i think a lot of the again

00:13:58.760 it's it's it's it's about normalizing no of course you know you're not going to send your kid

00:14:03.560 to private school because one you don't need to and what you can do at home as a family

00:14:07.960 is better no you're not going to fly to travel but you can take car trips you can you know you can

00:14:15.380 absolutely travel places as a family and that's very normal and like the point i was making earlier

00:14:20.440 about like a world tour is it like yeah but these even these super super wealthy kids at that time

00:14:26.660 weren't traveling every single year you know that even the wealthiest did not normalize things like

00:14:34.020 this they didn't there are ways that you can make travel work for your family even today if you want

00:14:38.720 to travel every year you get in your car or your van or your converted bus depending on how many kids

00:14:43.820 you have and you go to the woods you go to local things and and this one thing you created we should

00:14:50.460 link to this in the description your where to live document where you created a document on

00:14:56.120 an optimal like optimal places to live if you live in the united states and you want to have a large

00:15:00.760 family and one of the big things that you factored in there was where are places where you can live

00:15:05.560 where in a car with your family because obviously flying is really expensive when you have a lot of

00:15:10.940 kids would you be able to travel to the most meaningful cool destinations so you know it's it's affordable

00:15:16.580 to take trips that still feel really special where you go to major cities or major sites or theme parks

00:15:22.340 or whatever it might be so i think that's also an important factor you secure a partner so obviously

00:15:28.080 we think that cities are a high utility for securing partners they are um after you secure a partner

00:15:32.760 and you're looking to settle down you start having kids do check out this document and then move to

00:15:36.560 rural pennsylvania because it is the best i can easily from where we are here go take a trip to dc go take

00:15:44.360 you know see the nation's capital see all the museums go take a trip to manhattan see all of

00:15:48.700 that go to boston see where the tea party happened everything like that or or go to the beach i can go

00:15:53.920 to jersey shore i can go gambling in atlantic city i can you know i i can see most of america's like

00:16:00.140 major cultural centers very very easily oh i want to go to another country just drive up to canada

00:16:05.360 you know and i want to go to a theme park a horseshoe park you know and we find this uniquely notable

00:16:10.920 because you grew up in in texas at least when you were pretty young and and i grew up in california

00:16:15.800 and like you can't really drive to that many places when you live in can't do anything yeah

00:16:22.820 it's terrible i i did not enjoy it at all i remember you know when i was at boarding school

00:16:28.080 in new england we'd be driving for a little bit people like oh we crossed the state border and i'd be

00:16:31.880 like you did what you gotta understand you're a texan saying you crossed the state border is like

00:16:37.020 saying we just entered like deep space like yeah and and californians no i i don't care to hear that

00:16:46.720 you drove to vegas or tahoe like no that that doesn't impress me when like we have to drive at

00:16:53.700 much much shorter distances to get to either gambling or resorts or amazing camping and and

00:17:01.720 nature and wildlife let me tell you what sorry how did this video come shitting on everywhere

00:17:07.260 but yeah big sir people in san francisco they're like oh i wouldn't say you got no animals there

00:17:13.280 like it's weird like when i go to big sir it feels like i have i have entered an area that has just

00:17:18.960 undergone some sort of like ecological catastrophe where like somehow all of the insects and birds and

00:17:24.200 animals die because it is weirdly quiet this is just i like it i like it i know you really

00:17:30.020 like buggy rainforests that's not really my thing i'm i'm a fan of big sir i grew up around it but

00:17:34.880 like anyway just in terms of variety in our house like the ecological diversity you have here

00:17:40.760 just the birds like around our house like it's nothing on this in california i don't not i don't

00:17:46.980 understand my guess is what's happening in california is the trees have some sort of defense mechanism

00:17:52.620 that's like uniquely good i think it might be the redwood forest against it could be a redwood thing

00:17:56.580 and because you don't have insects you don't have birds and because you know you don't have that you

00:18:00.720 don't have like anything else that you would have in a normal large ecosystem but it is it is like a

00:18:05.400 uniquely sad ego like growing up in texas like i get to california and i'm like where are they animals

00:18:11.580 like this is the woods it's trees and deer like where's everything else but anyway you know and i do

00:18:19.200 think that there's some other places you know obviously we stand where we live because we're happy with the

00:18:23.400 place and you're running for office here so you got to talk about how great it is but this there are

00:18:28.340 other really i think common things that you know a lot of people expect they have to do as parents

00:18:33.760 it would be insanely expensive if you did and one thing that did come up in the comments too was

00:18:37.880 child care like child care is just so expensive and when i was watching a video recently on why dink

00:18:43.740 couples didn't have kids one of the women interviewed said oh yeah you know i have this friend who just

00:18:48.920 bemoaned the fact that she realized that the amount she takes home and take home pay from her job

00:18:53.900 equals the amount that she would be paying in child care if she had a kid and yeah child care is

00:18:58.860 unsustainably expensive and after a certain number of kids like we we we used child care when we had

00:19:04.840 two kids because you know kind of we could and it was like it much easier to not have to work that out

00:19:09.380 and then after three and having three in child care for like six months like all of our savings

00:19:15.580 we're figuring out another solution and that's the thing was more kids right more kids force you to

00:19:22.920 find other actually sustainable solutions yeah now we have found a solution that costs us maybe half

00:19:28.700 what we were paying in child care before for the three kids is infinitely better for our kids because

00:19:34.320 it's a friendly neighbor who we help with stuff and and help a bit financially and then who takes

00:19:39.480 care of the kids and who the kids like more right like we had built this horrible situation where we

00:19:47.000 were treating child care as either a school or an individual financial thing where it's like we're

00:19:53.260 paying you for x many hours and now we're treating it in the way people historically treated it as a

00:19:58.420 community solution because more kids forces you to find these more out of the box solutions that are

00:20:05.480 actually much closer to the way people historically did things yeah i think a lot of it's the question

00:20:09.800 of what is your life going to be about like is your life going to be about conforming with mainstream

00:20:14.860 societal ideals of like this is how you do these certain rituals or is your life going to be about

00:20:22.440 your family and raising a successful family you know and even when it comes to kid development

00:20:27.980 i also i think that it's underrated the if if we could put a dollar amount on the value that a child

00:20:37.320 gets by having siblings that they get to play a role in raising the responsibility that gives them

00:20:43.660 the maturity that gives them you know i feel like that is on its own is worth at least 25 percent of

00:20:50.740 the cost of an elite private school every single year in terms of the the maturity and responsibility

00:20:56.500 that it gives to a kid in a positive and constructive context too and keep in mind you know another

00:21:02.520 advantage you have when you have a lot of kids is you know when we're at eight nine kids or something

00:21:06.260 like that then you're getting to a situation where we don't even need the neighbors to help take care

00:21:09.680 of the kids you know then the kids are playing the daycare role as well you know so if they want to

00:21:14.260 we want to make it we were discussing this yesterday we want to make this totally

00:21:17.840 like often like we would we would pay them for tutoring and child care services if they wanted

00:21:25.460 to do it and if they didn't we wouldn't force it we don't believe in forced parentification

00:21:29.200 but i think it's also like a great i believe in forced parentification i i think that you don't

00:21:35.300 want that for our kids and i understand why we wouldn't do that with our kids but i don't think

00:21:39.220 it's like a bad thing well yeah i mean i don't believe in coercion and i don't think you really

00:21:43.300 can coerce it but i know you don't want to force a kid into a role like that that doesn't want to be

00:21:48.260 in a role like that but if you raise the kid well and you have parental instincts your kids will have

00:21:52.200 parental instincts our kids are very nice to each other like we're surprised by it yeah so so i

00:21:57.900 totally get that now another thing that somebody mentioned in one of these that i that i want to

00:22:01.560 bring up and i'm not i'm not gonna look this up i'll look this up afterwards and then add it when i'm

00:22:05.620 doing the editing is the incremental cost of each additional kid because i think people might be

00:22:10.440 really surprised there was a study done on this and it shows i think it's like after four

00:22:14.800 every additional kid costs on average about a thousand dollars a year so not a lot sadly i was

00:22:22.760 not able to find this study i was thinking of i know it was done at one time and it was around a

00:22:27.060 thousand a year once you get up to four and it makes sense when i looked at another study i found

00:22:31.440 which found the numbers for kid one was fourteen thousand four hundred and sixty a year kid two

00:22:38.440 was eight thousand five hundred and forty a year and kid three was two thousand eight hundred and

00:22:44.560 eighty a year and this was in an article called the marginal cost of children in the new york times

00:22:49.460 archive so this is even you know fairly progressive publication which is admitting this by the time you

00:22:54.540 get to kid three you have fallen from a cost of around fifteen thousand dollars a year for one kid

00:23:00.160 to well under three thousand dollars a year and so you can see how you get down to like one thousand

00:23:05.900 extra a year or eight hundred extra a year when you get like four kid number five the costs just drop

00:23:10.920 really dramatically and and the waste that you have when you're having a few kids keep in mind you

00:23:16.620 still need to buy all the shit you know whether or not you're having a ton of kids or a few kids

00:23:20.560 so you know the next time you have a kid

00:23:24.020 no baby toys it's it's no you know no no no toddler toys no swings or high chairs or bibs or plates

00:23:34.760 or bottles or sippers or every time we buy something for one of our kids that's being used by like a huge

00:23:42.620 chain of kids after them like the wastefulness of buying a bottle or a shoe for a toddler that they can

00:23:49.520 literally only wear until they what what when we really work on buying like forever toys like we

00:23:57.520 we now take inspiration from and this is i think this is i'm so excited to have learned this school

00:24:04.060 like not school on public libraries often have like toy sections for kids and those toy sections are

00:24:10.580 usually populated with the most durable but also popular toys that can survive many many many children

00:24:17.320 constantly playing with them and totally abusing them for many years so that's where we got the

00:24:22.020 idea of like wooden toy sets and all these other things that like clearly are durable clearly have

00:24:27.260 staying power our kids love playing with them and you can always have the kids play test them at a

00:24:30.780 public library and know if they like them so like yeah we don't have to buy now we don't have to buy

00:24:35.240 that again for our kids which is amazing yeah it feels so wasteful when you when you get something

00:24:41.280 like this and it's for one kid or two kids right like you you are like these toys interest them for

00:24:47.480 how long like literally i don't know like not that long for a lot of toys but if they're interesting

00:24:52.600 five kids six kids you know you get this feeling like oh that was a really worthwhile economic

00:24:57.720 investment for my family totally yeah no it's it's it's and i think what are what are other crazy

00:25:04.740 things oh like when we go out to eat and we see parents ordering kids meals for their kids which

00:25:09.720 they subsequently do not eat that why would you do that why would you ever take your kids to a

00:25:14.360 restaurant like i don't get it one you don't need to pay for your kids and two you don't need to pay

00:25:20.380 for a zempic because you just give your kids a little bit off your plate and then you know

00:25:24.420 okay yeah so if you're going to a restaurant you can have your kids eat off your plate or something

00:25:29.820 like that but it's like do these people not know like youtube exists like if you have a a decent

00:25:35.160 quality spouse like myself or my wife you know we always take the time to you know we go to a

00:25:40.440 restaurant the only reason i go to restaurants today is to learn new dishes and what i mean to

00:25:44.640 learn a new dish is i look at the dish they made and if i like it then i learn to make it myself

00:25:48.500 and then i make it for myself there is no reason to as an adult be going to restaurant what are you

00:25:55.000 doing like you can go to youtube learn to make the dish that was made at the restaurant right

00:26:01.600 and then tweak it to your personal taste and make it with all high quality ingredients without

00:26:08.580 cutting all the corners that restaurants are always cutting and you're going to get a dramatically

00:26:13.140 cheaper dramatically higher quality food like what are you doing and this is the type of thing where

00:26:19.900 it's like you know historically before kids we would go out to eat pretty frequently right you know

00:26:24.080 and and kids force you to learn to make these decisions when you have a big family that end up

00:26:29.880 being much more economically nicer much more even hedonistically nicer like the food i'm eating

00:26:35.980 now is better than the food i was eating when i would go to restaurants all the time yeah yeah

00:26:40.680 i i i you know and you keep seeing this is that our society has trapped us in what i call easy

00:26:49.660 hedonism and the problem is is that easy hedonism sucks so much more than a hard hedonism well and i think

00:26:56.040 the other thing is that people need to recognize just how completely out of touch with reality

00:27:00.880 most standard expectations around children really are like even when you look at movies

00:27:07.880 from from past time periods like you want to go in your 16 candles i was just watching 16 candles

00:27:14.980 last night and i was like oh my gosh this is a family of four and they are financially reasonable

00:27:20.460 about what they do with their lives like they there's a wedding that takes place in the movie

00:27:26.420 for one of the older siblings and a family and all the grandparents come to town but they're like

00:27:32.300 literally sleeping in the kids bedrooms of the family house they're not like putting them up in

00:27:36.420 hotels or anything because they are financially reasonable home alone you know there's there's not

00:27:41.320 a nanny for every child like moving about the house they don't have au pairs or anyone helping them out

00:27:46.140 this is you know a this is a family that is literally traveling with what how many kids like

00:27:53.260 10 14 it was some some insane number of kids and today they're like oh you can't travel with that

00:27:58.660 many kids without an au pair what are you doing 15 kids no au pair although they were they were

00:28:04.500 clearly i mean when you look at their house they're like insanely wealthy and they also were flying to

00:28:07.900 like paris and then in like the second movie miami with all those kids they're insane but yeah i mean

00:28:13.140 even when you look in the past you see little things of like yeah no yeah kids don't kids don't

00:28:19.920 need this much stuff and we we're we're not being reasonable so i think that the question to ask

00:28:26.160 yourself if you want more kids here's the thing do not have more kids if financially it is going to

00:28:31.560 put you in a dangerous situation where you cannot maintain housing or food or your job you know like

00:28:38.320 do not put yourself in a situation where you are um mentally going to you know suffer a ton because

00:28:45.000 of the stress and the you know like you're going to lose your health insurance or things like that

00:28:49.260 like we're like literally you're being destabilized although i should say that most states have resources

00:28:54.660 for parents who find themselves in a low income level talk about our resource list yes so on on

00:29:00.180 pronatalist.org if you go to our services section then scroll down a little bit it links to a parent

00:29:06.620 resources page where we list at least for the united states to start if you want us to try to

00:29:10.720 do your nation let let me know and we can you know hire yourself and we'll add it to the list for other

00:29:15.780 parents totally but we have a guide to federal resources for parents in the united states as well

00:29:20.840 as state-based resources for parents in the united states the vast majority of them are based on income

00:29:26.700 limits but if you are low income it is amazing what the state will provide i mean everything from you know

00:29:32.040 health care to food assistance to housing assistance to all sorts of other things you know even access

00:29:38.280 there there are more education savings accounts programs for low-income families now than there

00:29:44.160 are just for general families so there there's a lot that you can get for support but i still like i

00:29:50.340 don't want to encourage people to have kids if they like can't afford to pay for them all by themselves

00:29:54.680 so like i feel like if that's if that's the problem like the person who's like how do i pay for private

00:30:00.160 school for all my kids it's like you right and that's yeah you just don't yeah just don't yeah so

00:30:05.100 no you're not going to fly we're building our education system specifically because we do not

00:30:11.780 plan to send our kids to college and i wanted something better well i mean specifically because

00:30:15.500 we do not plan to pay to send our kids to college if they want to go to college they have to find a way

00:30:20.260 to either through their own businesses or through scholarships or grants pay their own way through

00:30:26.020 college and we plan to set them up to have that be an easy option for them if they want it but yeah

00:30:31.200 i mean that's the thing is is no you will not be going out no you will not be flying internationally

00:30:36.060 with your children no you will not be you should probably build for our foundation is one of those

00:30:40.620 things that can help a kid what's the word where they become separated from their parents oh to become

00:30:45.540 emancipated because that can really help with college loans and stuff like that if you're part

00:30:50.460 of a large oh with financial aid okay that's a yeah that's a good project for us to work on

00:30:54.320 but but you know i do remember before we had kids thinking it was going to be a lot worse and that like

00:31:02.440 oh man this is going to be so tough and like also expecting that we were going to need those things

00:31:07.760 you know we were going to need like a bunch of nannies and night nurses and like remember after the

00:31:13.600 my first attempt to get overnight care when we had a newborn i was like wait this is really stupid no i

00:31:20.300 and ever since i do all of the overnight care i do all the daycare for for newborns because that's

00:31:26.400 really easy for me and then you take care of all the toddlers and everyone older and it's just

00:31:29.920 it's seamless like there's a lot of things that you think you need that you really really really don't

00:31:34.640 and i i will i will admit there are some luxuries i've been exposed to and ever being ever since

00:31:40.660 being exposed to them living without them sucks like there is one first class fights yes you cannot

00:31:46.760 afford is there any other no and see that's it like there's nothing else where i'm like oh man my

00:31:52.200 life is so much worse now and the only reason we even would need to take you on a first class fight

00:31:56.560 is because of the freaking conferences we speak at because of pro natalism yeah and and i would i

00:32:01.380 would rather not travel at all so like really it's it's not even something i should be regretting

00:32:05.660 because i i really don't want to travel in the first place so like my life really isn't worse

00:32:10.580 at all and i love when you're like well what about my friends like i'm not gonna get to see my friends

00:32:15.020 anymore it's like do you not understand friends are pretty shitty like kids so much better than friends

00:32:20.320 like like the parents stop interacting with you when they have kids not because they don't have time

00:32:28.400 always some of the time is because they realize that the the these these veneers of relationships

00:32:36.080 they had formed with other people were so much less deep than the relationships that actually matter in

00:32:40.860 life yeah yeah and this is i you know it is something that we constantly struggle with that like

00:32:47.980 everyone's like yeah but what about love and the deep bonds that i form with my friends and we're just

00:32:52.540 like and this is not to say that there are people that we really care about a lot that you know like

00:33:00.380 to to us they are family and they're not related to us by blood you know these are just people that we

00:33:05.560 care deeply about and we will vouch for them and we'll put our names on the line for them and whatever

00:33:10.260 right like but i don't know like burden myself caring about them all the time and seeing them and

00:33:17.620 visiting them and going out for drinks i don't understand how bars say it is i'm gonna be honest like we live in a

00:33:22.120 rural area and this is something i often talk about like how you have to go to these bars you have to

00:33:27.020 drive to them like how are you doing that yes suburban bars do not make sense suburban and rural bars are

00:33:33.260 very strange it is uh what in the drinks cost like eight times if you just anyway i love you simone

00:33:42.680 have a wonderful day and i hope this video has been to some extent freeing to some people but other

00:33:48.600 people should be like no i can't do it i won't give up anything and it's like okay well then you

00:33:54.120 shouldn't have more kids because but don't think of it as giving things up think of it as recontextualizing

00:33:59.740 life and embracing frankly more this is why you're running for office well but also like it's so odd

00:34:07.860 because you and i are so materialistic and you know everything we're you know we do is is very much

00:34:12.680 driven by like capitalist philosophy and it rubbed many people the wrong way but we're also like

00:34:18.200 you know like the the money stuff doesn't matter the luxury stuff really isn't what we're in this for

00:34:23.920 so i i don't know like i would say that even as very materialistic capitalist friendly people

00:34:30.880 like this is just not something that's worth it like you're not gonna you're not gonna be happier

00:34:37.260 you're living this luxurious life and and we see this is people who've experienced both extremes

00:34:42.020 in different contexts extreme extreme luxury in my life and people who live life in extreme extreme

00:34:48.180 luxury are not happy people generally they're really broadly they are really not happy people

00:34:54.940 and and and when i see ultra wealthy people who have a lot of kids they are not forced to make these

00:35:00.260 changes to the way they raise their kids which leads to them being actually in my experience much less

00:35:05.700 happy than than lower income people who have a lot of kids because those are the people who are like

00:35:10.500 how do i actually figure out child care how do i actually i would say like we'll say roughly middle

00:35:15.840 income kids like families that are large have the best kid outcomes and i if anything both i mean okay

00:35:25.160 so i would say yeah like low income kids have the worst headwinds like the worst but then second after

00:35:31.520 them is super wealthy kids oh yeah just all the the messed up stuff that they're dealing with and

00:35:37.500 then the best off are not even upper upper middle class but like middle class we're like there there

00:35:44.140 is literally not the option to have many indulgences in life like those do the very best because they

00:35:49.180 learn how to handle things for themselves it's so funny martha stewart my my hero my my patron saint

00:35:56.580 spent her entire career once she became famous trying to hide the fact that she came from a poor

00:36:03.240 polish family but the the the thing that made her such an amazing person and the thing that made her

00:36:11.520 capable of turning homemaking and domesticity into this branded luxury experience was the fact

00:36:19.120 that she actually had to make everything from scratch that she actually had to sew clothes that they

00:36:24.200 actually had to have all these like you know they had to fix everything themselves and reupholster

00:36:29.200 furniture and make all their own meals and and not go out for for for dinner and stuff so like it's

00:36:36.360 it is it is these people who ultimately create amazing outcomes so just yeah i love you simon and i

00:36:46.680 really enjoyed this conversation and i'm just so fortunate to be married to somebody who's willing to make

00:36:51.880 these changes one of the things that i think scares me the most you know when i think about our kids

00:36:56.440 and when i look at people out there today is they marry someone who tells them that they're down for

00:37:01.000 these sacrifices life changes and then they do not make them you know they get they refuse to actually

00:37:09.640 care for the kids you know they keep like full-time live-in staff and they say this is too much for me

00:37:13.820 you know and i've seen this even was in my own family you know and it is repulsive it is it is

00:37:20.080 the highest failure you know a human who committed to handling this can make and yeah it's really

00:37:26.480 rough because typically it's the women who do this and they have like 100 all the control over

00:37:31.220 like whether or not they're gonna have kids and a man can't be like oh no pregnancy is not that hard

00:37:37.060 because they they just they literally can't do it and so they can't and then you go to people about

00:37:42.480 this right you know and i wish they could see kids the way we do you know they the kids exist before

00:37:47.300 they're born right and so when a person says well yeah but if i have another kid i won't be able to

00:37:51.280 travel every year it's like do your trips to like the caribbean are they like if you your future kid

00:37:56.560 like two timelines you have to in one timeline explain to your future kid that the trips to the

00:38:00.840 caribbean were just more important than their life like do you actually think you're like a decent human

00:38:06.300 being like oh oh or or or oh no it's that i had to take my other kids out of private school or i

00:38:13.980 couldn't pay for college for all my kids and and you go to that future kid and you're like little timmy

00:38:18.660 i'm sorry but your life just was not as important as sending these other kids well and think about

00:38:23.740 this actually occupation factory we wouldn't have american heroes like benjamin franklin were it not for

00:38:29.920 parental budgetary constraints so benjamin franklin's father wanted to as he put it in his biography

00:38:36.680 tithe him to the church as as one of the youngest kids he was like okay finally i'm willing to just

00:38:42.380 give away one of my kids to the church so he his plan originally was to pay for benjamin franklin's

00:38:48.500 private school so that he could go into into the clergy and be properly educated to serve god

00:38:54.760 traditionally through the church ran out of money and so benjamin franklin had to get a job

00:39:00.200 and it was it was that point at which his life and career began if he had ended up 12 by the way

00:39:08.100 you know yeah starting at age 12 totally but like imagine if his father had enough money to continue

00:39:14.920 paying for private school to send him to the church benjamin franklin may have been you know a great church

00:39:20.760 luminary or something like that but he certainly would not have been the the philosophical in in

00:39:27.820 invention inventuous it in what's the word for someone who invents invents things inventor and yeah but

00:39:36.620 like someone an adjective describing someone who is inclined to make inventions ingenious inventorious

00:39:46.100 innovative innovative innovative yes yeah he wouldn't he wouldn't have become this this

00:39:52.260 entrepreneurial innovative uh politically influential figure that he was i mean he played

00:39:57.020 a key role in the formation of the early united states so again like you know the

00:40:02.400 some kind of hardship some kind of constraint has to be given in order to give someone the opportunity

00:40:11.040 to thrive so anyway i know i know we gotta we gotta get going do you want to do curry bricks tonight

00:40:16.840 curry bricks oh you want to mean the japanese curry bricks yeah yeah the japanese curry

00:40:21.280 oh yeah yeah yeah you're gonna do that with the slow cook yeah love that idea and this is the type

00:40:28.240 of thing you know when you have a big family you can use a slow cooker slow cook a big thing of steak

00:40:32.200 you know you get it at bj's it it it stays very well in the fridge after that so then you you

00:40:37.900 dole it out and once you've slow cooked the steak there's lots of things you can do to create these

00:40:42.240 really high quality meals so i am so excited for this simone and i love you i love you too milcom

Based Camp - January 04, 2024

Is 5 Kids Really Easier & Cheaper Than 2？

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