He has avoided experiences I hated, and there are a lot of things he got right in his statements. Still the whole argument is a great sadness.
People keep seeing videos pop up online from the comedian Seth Rogen making his argument that he is glad he doesn’t have kids.
Of course, lots of people are pushing back on the sentiment, and I will too. But I wanted to admit here that he gets a lot right.
First, Seth is right: Often, having kids is way less fun than it should be.
In his newly surfacing Kelly Clarkson Show interview, Rogen said: “People describe having kids as like brief glimmering moments of beauty amongst a sea of pain. … It doesn’t seem that fun. … Whereas not having kids — it’s just lovely all the time. There’s none of that. It’s just great all day.”
It’s easy to dismiss his comments as simply selfish — but he is onto something. Having children is a lot harder than it needs to be.
Tim Carney’s excellent book Family Unfriendly details how unnecessarily difficult our culture has made parenting, and how “today’s maximum-effort, high-anxiety, low-trust parenting isn’t high-quality parenting. It isn’t producing better results for children or for parents.”
So let’s give parents a break.
Parents are spending more time than ever dealing with their kids, and getting worse results. The better approach for both kids and parents is a less hands-on approach. Carney gives some options for that.
I am blessed to live in Atchison, Kansas, where home-schooled kids run in packs, play soccer, board games or jump on the trampoline together, at friends’ houses and parks. It makes parenting a lot less stressful, and a lot more fun.
Second, Seth is right that people think there are too many kids.
Rogen also defended his choice on Clarkson’s show by saying, “There are so many kids! Who looks at all the kids out there and thinks, ‘I wish they were more kids’? … Also, like, won’t the world not be here in 30 years?”
He’s right: Most people think that overpopulation is a problem.
So, we should correct them.
Experts know what the public doesn’t: A rapidly declining number of children is our problem, not overpopulation. A new study this month shows how bad it is.
Carney says, “Babies are actually good for the economy. Our wealth is not dollars that we have, it’s people doing productive things, making things and performing services.” Or, as It’s a Wonderful Life puts it, each missing person “leaves an awful hole.” We need more George Baileys, not fewer.
Third, Seth is right that parents have to sacrifice great experiences for children.
Rogen told Clarkson, “I am doing stuff all the time where I look over at my wife and she looks at me and we’re like, ‘If we had kids, we couldn’t do this. This wouldn’t even remotely be on the table.’ …. All the time is ‘me’ time.”
He’s right. My wife and I have never toured the Taj Mahal, sipped wine in Saint-Tropez, or watched a first run Broadway musical. He probably has.
And he has avoided experiences I hated: Walking a baby who was crying for no apparent reason, in the middle of the night; panicking over a child’s crisis; and cleaning poop and vomit off of unexpected (and unexplainable) surfaces.
But I do have happiness, and that’s greater than pleasure.
At Benedictine College, Carney cited statistics showing that “there is a happiness gap between married people and non-married people. Women who are married with kids are twice as likely to say they are very happy, and far less likely to say they are unhappy.”
Why? Because “happiness comes from laying down your life for another person, self-sacrificing. That is what is parenting is. The reason it leads to your happiness is not because it’s a joy in every moment. It’s because we are living our purpose.”
Last, even if he may be right on some details, Seth’s overall calculous is dangerously wrong.
If Rogen is right, and kids aren’t worth what we have to do for them, then it follows that human beings aren’t worth it. It means Seth Rogen wasn’t worth it. It means the Rogens should have skipped Seth.
I honestly think this is the greatest sadness of this argument. All of Seth Rogen’s arguments against kids are arguments against Seth Rogen. And I, for one, am glad Seth Rogen exists.
