Are you agreeing with my original comment that since ‘contracted’ and ‘committed’ time are becoming more stressful we need more free time for practising the art of living? (Think Stuart Wagstaff in those old Benson & Hedges ads: silk cravats, sophisticated cigarettes ….)

My point is that there are some people who always seem to be able to see the downside of everything, but little or none of the upside - and also seem to think that someone else has made every one of life’s decisions for them.

IE If you delay having children for whatever reason, that means you will be older when your kids are teenagers and there is an increased risk that you will be: a) going through menopause; b) having to look after aged parents; c) in a responsible job. All fairly obvious if you stop to think about it.

Life with teenagers is not always (hardly ever) easy, true, but I would have thought that part of the “art of living” involves not endlessly beating either your own breast or someone else’s over things that are really just the facts of life.

Even if it would be possible to achieve these benefit completely through immigration, this does not mean that the private choice to have children does not have wider social benefits.

Even if we assume, for the purposes of argument, that children-bearing confers net external benefits (rather than net external costs), if it is possible to obtain the same external benefits more cheaply through other means, then there would be no case for government subsidies for children-bearing to obtain those benefits.

At the risk of reigniting the debate about family policy, the essence of the argument is that not all of the benefits of children are private, but that there are significant benefits in the longer run even to people who do not currently have children and also to those who will never have children. Even if it would be possible to achieve these benefit completely through immigration, this does not mean that the private choice to have children does not have wider social benefits.

A noted long ago this does not mean that current policy has the right balance between public and private costs, but it does imply a rationale for public support (which can then be debated)

Maybe they don’t go to the extent of sitting down and working out a balance sheet, but somewhere in their heads they are weighing things up and deciding what will ‘maximise their utility’. But really, pardon me if I don’t feel that the government (or someone) needs to protect the ‘free time’ of middle-aged people who have teenagers, because they were too busy in their 20s having a good time and doing whatever they felt like doing.

But I must stop before we get into the old argument about how children are all benefit/enjoyment and no cost/work/aggravation.

I can’t recally anyone saying anything like that. The key point of the argument was the benefits and costs of children, whatever their extent, as essentially private, and flow from the lifestyle decisions of parents. The issue is why childfree people should have to subsidise parents for their lifestyle choices. The fact that the costs of those choices, whether it be in time, expenses or income forgone, is high is essentially irrelevant to that debate.

Peter - tell that to all the child-free, who think they don’t get their fair share of benefits from that status.

But I must stop before we get into the old argument about how children are all benefit/enjoyment and no cost/work/aggravation.