It Might Be More Expensive To Not Have Kids—Here's Why

There are some things about kids most people can agree on. They’re messy, they’re loud, and they’re cute. They say hilarious things, and they can cost a lot of money. This last fact has risen to the forefront of many young people’s minds and they often cite the cost of raising children as one of their top reasons for deciding not to have any themselves. 

Recently I wrote about the many expenses that children do indeed bring, whether it’s the cost of giving birth itself, full time, part time, or even just time-to-time childcare, or all the gear we need on hand for babies and toddlers. However, there’s more to the equation than the price tag of caring for little ones.

Before we can compare the expense of having kids with the expense of choosing to not have them, we have to ask a few more fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Questions like: what do humans want? That is, what are we made for? What makes our lives meaningful and joyful? What motivates us, connects us, and inspires us? Without considering these questions, we won’t really have a holistic understanding of how much it actually costs to have or not have children.

What Do We Want, Anyway?

Many minds wiser than mine have pondered this question for centuries, so I won’t pretend to be an expert on human flourishing here. Instead, I hope to point out a few things that both common sense, my own experience, and scientific data point out about what our species needs to feel fulfilled in our lives and how that might impact the expenses we collect throughout them. 

First, people crave meaning. As Dr. Peter Gärdenfors on Psychology Today puts it, “humans are the meaning-seeking animals.” We want to strive toward goals, to accomplish things, and to know that our contributions have an impact. We can see the importance of meaning in life in the fact that it works as protection against depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. 

We also crave connection. We’ve known for a while that social connection is as important to our wellbeing as food and shelter. Whether it’s family, friends, or feeling embedded in our community, it’s crucial for us as people to know that we are connected to others in meaningful ways. Social isolation, on the other hand, can lead to depression, anxiety, risk of suicide, and lowered immune function.

Finally, and I’m not trying to be funny with this, I promise, but we literally crave procreation. As the National Library of Medicine admits, “on a fundamental biological level, humans are programmed to reproduce.” Our entire sex drive exists for the purpose of creating tiny new humans, and we all know how powerful our sex drive can be. We can also see the importance of this craving when it isn’t fulfilled — there’s nothing more painful for couples who want dearly to have a child than the struggles of infertility. 

All of these areas — meaning in life, social connection, and procreation — overlap in some ways, but let’s take a moment to look at each separately to see its impact on the holistic expense of the decision to not have children. Hopefully as we explore each area we’ll begin to see how what we want as humans directly impacts what we do with our money.

We Crave Meaning In Life

There are a lot of ways we can find meaning in life. We can establish careers that use our talents or commit ourselves to serving those less fortunate than us. We can work toward positive goals and we can contribute to our community in endless ways. 

One way that humans, for as long as we’ve been around, have consistently found meaning is by having and raising children of our own. The love we feel for our little ones fills our lives with endless meaning as we see each tiny milestone as a huge accomplishment. While the day-to-day stresses of raising children might make it seem like parents are less happy than their child-free friends, what parents automatically have is something that orients them, grounds them, and drives them every day. 

When it comes to finances, this drive shows up in the fact that fathers tend to earn more than men who aren’t fathers and that mothers in the workplace are 15% more likely to be interested in becoming top executives than women who don’t have children. With mouths to feed, parents have newfound ambition to advance in their careers, ask for promotions, and make other decisions that increase their income. The meaningfulness of providing for their children pushes them to do things they might not have done just for themselves. 

With mouths to feed, parents have newfound ambition to advance in their careers, ask for promotions, and make other decisions that increase their income.

In addition, parents find that having children focuses their financial intentions when it comes to saving, budgeting, and planning for the future. Knowing that financial decisions impact not only themselves but their precious babies inspires parents to create smarter spending habits and make better financial investments. Being responsible for someone else forces you to be more responsible with your resources as well.

Meanwhile, couples often decide to stay child-free in order to have more disposable income to spend on themselves. They eat out, they travel often, and they make luxury purchases that many parents wouldn’t dream of keeping in the monthly budget. While this can seem exciting and fun, it’s also very expensive. And here’s the catch — spending money is actually not where we derive meaning in life. So if you’re choosing to not have kids to be able to buy more things, you’ll always be left wanting, and then spending, more and more and more.  

Without the natural meaning in life that parenthood provides, those who go child-free will have to look elsewhere for it. While there are worthwhile and productive ways that non-parents can spend their time, some will inevitably fill the void with things that also cost a lot of money, whether it’s travel or expensive hobbies. That’s why we hear people say, when referring to a project that takes up most of their time, focus, and money, “it’s pretty much my baby.”

One final consideration when it comes to meaning in life is that parents are more likely to be religious than non-parents. Not only are those who choose to have kids more likely to be religious already, but people who choose to have kids are more likely to increase in their religious salience, attendance, and activity in religious organizations. Studies show that people who are religious spend less money and make fewer impulse purchases. This is another way that we can see how parenthood helps orient people — not toward superficial spending in the hopes that it will make them happy, but toward things that actually provide proper meaning in life.

We Crave Social Connection

Like meaning in life, social connection can come in many different forms. Spending time with friends and family, joining local groups related to a hobby or interest, and volunteering in your community are all great ways to stay connected to others. Ideally we crave deeper, more intimate relationships that help us know we are seen and that our efforts to give what we can are appreciated by others.

As an introvert, I can tell you that if it weren’t for my kids I would not be as involved in my community as I am. Left to my own devices, I will stay home rather than go out, I will avoid phone calls, and I might even go out of my way to not have to say "hi" to a neighbor while I’m checking my mail. Now that I have two little boys, though, you can’t keep me away from the neighborhood park, where we’re bound to talk to other parents and make new neighborhood friends. I’ve joined a MomCo group that’s blossomed into a true community. We linger after our music class to talk to other families, and we’ve befriended the grandparents on our block who love seeing little ones playing in the yard. We bring neighbors valentines, we bring new parents home-cooked meals, and we see my and my husband’s family more than we otherwise would. 

People are drawn to children, and parents are drawn to anyone willing to do anything from pull their kid on a sled around the block to watch them overnight when mom and dad are at the hospital with a newborn. Having children not only widens your social network, but it increases the chances that others will be generous toward you with their time and money. Most people understand that raising children is a huge commitment, and they enjoy helping out those adorable little people when they can. This widened circle of generosity results in mutual increased happiness, as well as in the blessing of savings in many perhaps small but nonetheless impactful areas of life.

Having children not only widens your social network, but it increases the chances that others will be generous toward you with their time and money.

In addition to the expanded network of social generosity parenthood cultivates, having children makes it more likely you’ll have financial help as you age. Although not every child is able to afford to pay for things like living expenses, medical care, and end-of-life care, some children indeed do cover these costs for parents. Plus, if you cultivate a healthy and loving relationship with your children as they grow into adulthood, it’s likely that they will help you out with their time and energy, whether it’s bringing healthy food to the nursing home, helping you manage your finances, driving you to doctors appointments, or picking up groceries or running other errands. There are countless expenses that children often take care of for their aging parents simply by providing their time, energy, and love. 

While their help is a blessing, even more important is the fact that your children provide incredible social connection as you age. Watching them grow into adults and begin their own families, and if you’re really lucky, seeing them become grandparents themselves, is an unmatched experience. This connection truly is something to live for, and we can see that in the fact that parents live longer than non-parents. Similarly, grandparents who help take care of their grandchildren live longer than those who don’t. The deep connection parents have with their children and grandchildren keeps them more vital in old age than their non-parent peers.

We Literally Crave Procreation 

There aren’t a lot of ways to accomplish the need to procreate other than having babies. While it is possible to find meaning in life and social connection in other ways, our mammalian and spiritual urge to nurture and raise more human beings will still be in our blood. Unfortunately this means that for those who don’t have children, the chance of mental health issues can increase. Childlessness for women is associated with higher usage of antidepressants, signaling that going child-free can include the expenses of therapy, medication, and the poorer physical health that comes with depression and anxiety.

There’s a similar cost for older parents whose children decide not to have kids of their own. Some members of older generations are now grieving the fact that they will never be grandparents because their Millennial or Gen Z children don’t want kids. Rather than spending their time babysitting darling little ones and experiencing the joy of watching them grow without the stress of losing sleep that parents have, these would-be grandparents are left to fill their days with other pursuits, and who knows what other expenses. It goes without saying that if you decide not to have kids, you’re also deciding to never be a grandparent or great-grandparent.

Childlessness for women is associated with higher usage of antidepressants, signaling that going child-free can include the expenses of therapy, medication, and the poorer physical health that comes with depression and anxiety.

The truth is, just like all other species, we have an innate desire to reproduce. Our sex drive, which is what’s urging us to reproduce, is so strong that psychologists like Sigmund Freud have mistaken it for the only orienting drive, period. If we knowingly say no to this all-too-natural part of being human, there’s really no quantifiable way to understand the expense we might be taking on. When we deny our biology and the continuation of our species and bloodline in favor of funding our own whims, we’re instead embracing nihilism and even selfishness. 

In order to maintain this self-imposed infertility, couples who decide to go child-free will have to opt for permanent sterilization or take birth control for the entirety of their fertile years. This decision comes with the tension of constantly avoiding the most natural process of each partner’s body and the natural consequence of sexual behavior. Plus, whether you opt for a vasectomy or the pill, each form of birth control comes with its own set of physical health risks, mental health risks and potential relationship problems. Again, the expense here may be hard to quantify, but it remains present.

In Conclusion 

While the numbers will obviously break down differently for every individual case, it’s entirely possible that for some people the choice to not have children will end up more expensive than if they had decided to have them. If you’ve been considering going child-free, I may not have fully convinced you that in your particular case that choice will be more expensive. But hopefully I have helped you see that it might cost you more. 

Because while there are many costs associated with having children, orienting one’s life around making money to spend on oneself is vapid, depressing, fleeting, and nihilistic. It leads away from meaning in life, social connection and our basic primal urges. On the contrary, orienting your life around providing for children is generous and fulfilling, and it creates infinite ripples of connection and benefit for both you, your community, and the world. There certainly is an argument to be made that the former is in many ways both more costly and more expensive.