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How To Have A Big Family Without It Being Too Expensive · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  Has it become too expensive to have kids? I think it's around $300,000 it costs to raise a kid today. So Jeff and I are going to discuss this. Andrew Bagley had a great video that I think unpacked the problem brilliantly, but does not actually get into the solution. So listen to every part of how he describes the problem. Jeff and I are going to dive into this, but then we're going to look at how can we think about this totally differently? So check this out. Children didn't get expensive. They got unnecessary, and that should terrify you.
• 0:26
  Here's a comparison that sounds insulting until you sit with it. Children are like horses. In the early 1900s, major cities were drowning in horses. They powered transportation, hauled goods, made economies move. People didn't keep horses because they loved horses. They kept them because they needed them. Then Henry Ford dropped the Model T. Within a few years, the need collapsed. Not because horses got more expensive, but because cars did the job better. Today, the only people who keep horses are the ones who genuinely love them. Despite the cost, the mess, and the work.
• 0:55
  An economist named Catherine Pakaluk argues children are going through the same transition, and the data backs her up. For most of human history, children met three needs nobody had to consciously think about. They worked in the fields, in the family business, and in the household economy. They provided security. If something happened to you, older children kept things running. And they were your retirement plan. Not metaphorically, literally. Then machines replaced the labor, insurance and dual income replaced the security, and Social Security replaced the retirement math. The need didn't fade slowly. It got systematically outsourced.
• 1:25
  Program by program, technology by technology, until one day, children were just optional. But here's the part that should actually unsettle you. Your grandparents didn't decide to have kids. That's just what you did. The default. You're the first generation that has to actively choose it against a culture that models the good life as optimized, unencumbered, and free. Behavioral science is unambiguous about what happens when something shifts from default to deliberate opt-in.
• 1:48
  participation collapses. No subsidy fixes a default shift. Japan tried bonuses, incentives, paid parental leave for years. Birth rates kept falling. Because you can subsidize diapers, you can't subsidize desire. The fertility crisis isn't just an economic problem, it's a meaning problem. Ask almost any parent who genuinely loves their kids whether they'd wish they'd had fewer. Almost none of them say yes. I just really didn't even know I could love like that. Really, my priorities shifted completely to them. They turned my world upside down in the best way.
• 2:18
  So why does the story we're telling make it feel like the obvious answer is no? All right. Yeah. Jeff, what stood out to you in that clip? It sounds like a fairly dire problem. Yeah, no, that was a great clip. The metaphor is perfect with the horses. I think, yeah, the problem diagnosis is really, really well done. And it's that we don't need kids anymore for the goals and incentives we have set up in the world. And so then that kind of becomes the question. Is that appropriate? Is that right? Is that wrong?
• 2:44
  Because again, we needed kids early 1900s to plow the fields, to do the work, to help the family. And so I know we'll jump into solutions in a little bit, but I think that's a big part too. The big shift in the last 120 years has basically been from turning kids into an asset, into a liability. And that's been detrimental to the family, right? The kids, you literally, it was hard to have a flourishing life without children 150 years ago.
• 3:06
  And now, in a consumeristic, capitalistic society, the more kids, I don't think it tends to mean this, but the vision is sometimes tends to believe that it's going to take more from us and it's actually going to be more of a liability. The other part I don't think actually a lot of people talk about, too, that also kind of was the...
• 3:22
  the double helix to make this a stronger problem is as actually like a world health. And what I mean by that is one of the complimentary problems with this is for lack of a better term, sociologists kind of talk about how people had seven, eight, nine, 10 kids in all of human history before 1900s, almost as insurance because they knew only three were going to make it to 15. So
• 3:43
  They knew only four of them were going to make it to age 12. And so that's a really interesting part, too, that like everything from health to vaccines to vitamins to doctors to medical fields to all these things have made it where like we no longer have to do that. And so, yeah, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. Those are just kind of the observations of what is true. But, yeah, has this been a slow burn or was it actually pretty dramatic and we've just been living in it? What would you say?
• 4:07
  Yeah, I think it's the observation that your grandparents did not decide to have children. Yeah. And you have to. And no civilization has ever had to face this as a choice the way that we do today, because we have the technology to block it. We have the technology to develop lifestyles that really grate deeply against having children. We have the technologies in terms of our politics or our government to be able to provide for people in their old age. We have alternatives to children.
• 4:33
  And so in every way, it feels like a blessing. Like, let's just create every alternative in the world so that we absolutely do not have to need children. And so they are, they're always a choice and more choice is always better. And this is where we're sort of bumping up against this real strange conundrum, which is have we gotten so too free?
• 4:52
  Like, like, so, so that we, yes, you have a choice, but does somebody who's like 23 years old have the wisdom to decide on their own whether or not they're going to want to have kids when they're 40, 50, 60? Because you have to decide, you know, younger. And so this is where a lot of kids are starting to get confused. And as they get older, you've got this strange problem of, of, I think they're calling it something like, you know, unplanned childlessness, an epidemic of unplanned childlessness that the average woman who's 30 and wants to have children.
• 5:22
  But is unmarried will has a less than 50 percent likelihood of have ever having a kid. That number is actually getting lower. I think it's all the way down to 28 years old now. I mean, it's just a very weird problem. Yeah, I agree. And it's one of those things where I think it feels illusory to people or it feels like an illusion where the biggest challenge with this problem.
• 5:42
  is I would say most people don't start realizing the Kool-Aid they have drank until they start already getting to the tail end of the years of the regret where it might be either too difficult to have it or there's going to be a lot of uphill challenges to have children then.
• 5:57
  So that's the really challenging part about it is I feel like people start asking themselves more soul-searching questions. I'm like, hold on, is the narrative the culture's given me right? Should I question it with no inhibition? Is there something wrong with it? Should I have kids? Should I have had kids earlier? Is my career the most important thing? I feel like we're not asking those questions till 35, 38, 42, and then some people kind of go, damn.
• 6:23
  bang, I bought a bill of goods that kind of was bankrupt to some degree. And of course, everyone takes a different journey. We all know that. But I mean, it's inarguable that, you know, 97% of people have kids and have families and have for, you know, before age 24 and all of human history. And so I think having to wrestle with that is really significant.
• 6:41
  Yeah. It's difficult when you think about, like, isn't a child-free life where you get to optimize everything for your own preferences, why wouldn't that be superior as a lifestyle choice? Now, there was a post on X by Kevin at Large Fam Dad that...
• 6:57
  That went really viral a few weeks ago. I want to read this to you, Jeff, and get your take on this because he really kind of talks, like hits this head on. It's really interesting how he describes this challenge, this thought of like optimization of lifestyle versus having kids as a default. And this is what he puts. He says, my boss's boss is like 42, never married, no kids, earns 300K a year.
• 7:16
  Goes on a minimum of two international vacations a year with his girlfriend, you know, 10 plus days all out. Eats the best foods, stays top-notch accommodations, excursions, tours, you know, nicest beaches, etc. Great guy, I'm happy for him. But what I've realized is that without kids, you end up chasing a lifestyle that has to continually be topped in order for you to be satisfied and find happiness.
• 7:39
  What he and others like him don't understand is that when you have children, seeing them experience life's most basic things and watching their eyes light up at all the first brings greater pleasure and joy than any vacation or travel experience ever could. Seeing them try blueberries for the first time. Trying seeing them learn how to walk.
• 7:59
  seeing them giggle uncontrollably at peekaboo, seeing their excitement when building a fort out of cardboard. He says, he's a flying kites with them, seeing them perform a recital on stage. And this is how he concludes. He says, when you have children, all of a sudden you realize that life's greatest joys are not in the pursuit of things or pleasure or travel, but rather in the love and bond you share with your very own image bearers, seeing the beauty and magnificence and wonder of life all over again for the first time through their eyes and expressions, through their eyes and expressions,
• 8:26
  Give you something the world simply cannot offer, nor even come close. So this collision between, there's almost like these two paths. I love it because he's laying it out. It's like, okay, here's patting optimization, constantly ratcheting up your lifestyle, always chasing bigger highs, more exciting things, or sort of starting over through the eyes of your children. What are your thoughts on that?
• 8:48
  Yeah, it reminds me of David Brooks' kind of first mountain versus second mountain kind of analogy. And I think that's where, you know, that first mountain is the mountain that everyone tries to climb of ambition, money, success, do all the things. And then most people tend to come off that mountain and realize life was not about that mountain. Life was about the second mountain, which is meaning, purpose, family, et cetera. I would argue that I think that...
• 9:10
  Family and children, while it is not absolutely, of course, the only vehicle, I think it is the primary vehicle that drives people down off the first mountain. I think you realize it puts things in perspective as what life is about.
• 9:26
  That sometimes just an ordinary dinner where you have kids that love you and you love them, and there's giggling and there's laughing and there's storytelling for an hour and a half on a Friday night with some candles and some pizza and some messy food and some messy toddlers. You're like, that's the meaning of life, right? Compared to the bank account or the vacation to Fiji. And it takes, I think, it takes sometimes the kids to do that. It takes marriage to do that. It takes family to do that.
• 9:53
  And even people that are, you know, not married, I still think that, you know, I would say even single people, it's the same thing. Their families, right? Their parents, their adult siblings and stuff like that can have the exact same effect where you realize the meaning of life is actually relationship. And I think that's just a huge conduit to that.
• 10:09
  Yeah. And just drilling into what I think is probably one of the most underappreciated possible ways of viewing this whole dilemma, why it's so almost obvious to us that we should optimize for personal fulfillment and freedom is because we think we're playing a single player game. And we really made that case to our own kids.
• 10:29
  And so I want to play for you a video, James. I don't know how to pronounce his last name. Sudar Sono. I love his videos. They're so insightful. But he really does something we've been trying to say for, you know, years and years of family teams. And that is that there is a completely different way to frame family from just the nuclear family that restarts our regeneration.
• 10:49
  to beginning to think about it multi-generationally. And that actually makes a lot more sense of what we're talking about, why somebody might choose to say, hey, kids are worth it. Yeah, they're expensive. Yeah, it's challenging. But they're not just a lifestyle choice. If we were living like multi-generational families, I think this would become the default. So let me share with you a little bit about how he describes this.
• 11:09
  What if we built businesses and livelihoods with multiple generations of our families so that the older generations could contribute things like capital, wisdom, experience, while younger generations drive forward with their energy, with hustle, with innovation? And what if retirement just looked like becoming the more passive roles in the family business
• 11:30
  to gently give guidance and direction as the adult children took the baton. What if we homeschooled our kids and brought them into the businesses that we're building so that by the time they're 18 years old, they have more than a decade of experience not sitting at a desk waiting for freedom,
• 11:45
  but working with mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, seeing the business up close? What if we lived near and even with our parents so that multiple generations of the family get to share all these moments of their lives together and build these rhythms of doing business and life together on a daily basis? What if generational wealth, all the assets in the portfolio, all the investments and the trust
• 12:07
  Get to be the support structure that upholds and furthers a life spent pursuing a God-given calling for your family. And what if this was how we were meant to live all along? All right. So what he is describing there is such a different pathway. And part of the way this sort of nets out in our conversation is what happens to a typical Western family is after you've invested the $300,000 or whatever to raise that kid.
• 12:36
  You then hit the reset button. Your kid takes off. They live their individual life. You take off. You live your individual life. And you're left asking the question, what would have happened if I had all that money to just enjoy myself over the last 18 years? And what James is describing here is, well, what if we...
• 12:52
  All the math changes when you start to think about family multigenerationally because when your kids turn 18, it's just getting started. Your experience is life or family together. So how does this impact on the way that you guys think about the vision of family versus lifestyle optimization?
• 13:08
  Yeah, I mean, I always think of the classic parallels, right, whether it's sports or business, that so many of those parallels outside of family think like this. They think that, hey, this is an asset. This group, this team, this thing is trying to produce something into the world, put something into the world missionally.
• 13:26
  Because of that, we're never starting from scratch. Even if we do maybe have to do a large U-turn, you know, 50 years down the road from the business, then it's still the same business, right? Or it's still the same core or it's still the same mission or you might introduce a new product. And that's the fun part is every generation gets to reinvent the wheel to some degree and put their own spin on it. It's not like an iron fist top down, but there's like a natural progression of, you know, uh...
• 13:49
  generational businesses, generational sports teams, whether it's from the ownership or whether it's even people on the team in a micro way, whether it's the veteran that's been on the team for 25 years versus the rookie that just came on the team. There's a dynamic there that's natural. There's a dynamic there as you kind of climb in this structure, in this system, and you're like,
• 14:08
  you are actually contributing and being contributed to in this mission and in this missional energy. And I think families, because not only we have bought the lie to be hyper individualistic, but then like you said, we don't really think generationally. We think that once we're 18, it's over rather than it's just beginning. We kind of then start from scratch every single time. And I just think, you know, whether it's a sports team, whether it's a business, it's...
• 14:32
  None of them would survive. If after 20 years, just give all... I mean, if Apple computers had to give $200 billion of cash back to the bank or whatever that they've stored up over 40 years and just start over, like, that doesn't sound like they would maybe get as far as if they had that and could actually pass it down to the next board and to the next CEO and to the next team. Now, people get sensitive about that parallel because they feel like that's enabling their kids. But that's, again, if it's the monies for consumption rather than for mission. And so it's all these layers of...
• 15:01
  of of understemming military be the same thing military has such a kind of fraternity based generational aspect to it of the guys that are 60 and 70 absolutely cannot fight anymore they are not fighting anymore they are not good snipers anymore they are not good at hand-to-hand combat anymore
• 15:18
  But they still very much are the coaches and the sages of the ones that have come before or the ones that are that they came before. And I think that's that's exactly what family is meant to be, is we're kind of meant to take on these roles generationally for 20 plus years and then jump into the next seat and then jump into the next seat. And there's about three or four of them as you live your entire life. And it's meant to build and expand. And you can just accomplish more. It's that simple. Like you can just accomplish more if you're actually kind of adding links to the chain rather than starting a new chain every single day.
• 15:48
  Yeah. So what you're describing there is the difference between sort of enjoying kids during their childhood and just saying that's it versus founding a dynasty. And when you actually do run the calculation between like actually establishing something that does go multi-generational versus what it would mean for you just to enjoy your years child free.
• 16:07
  It's obvious why in that second model, building a multi-generational family, establishing a dynasty, the impact that can have on the future for the kingdom of God in every dimension is so much greater. But you have to think about it from that perspective first. So, guys, that's why we're just really out here trying to help you guys understand. There's a very different way to think about this. And one of the actual upsides to the fact that we now...
• 16:29
  have to choose whether or not we're going to have kids is we have to now become a lot more clear and articulate why did God create the family and what kind of family did God create? Because maybe the kind of family that we've developed, this sort of nuclear family that lasts one generation, maybe this is not a strong enough argument to really cause a culture to say, let's really invest in our kids.
• 16:49
  But perhaps if we actually looked at the way the Bible describes families, a multi-generational team on a mission, establishing a dynasty over generations, making sure that your ceiling is your kid's floor, this process is really worth it. So that's what we want to advocate to you guys. Part of what this looks like for us, for both Jeff's family and my family, is we've tried to figure out, okay, if we're going to establish a dynasty that goes generations, we need to do a lot more together. And so part of what James is describing in this clip is...
• 17:13
  what if these multi-generational families work together? So we've got a little short course at familyteams.com slash blueprint where we walk through just sort of the first five steps of what it means to start to establish like a family business, like an asset building family team. What does that look like? Because we just discovered that, man, when you start to actually become productive, right, this starts to reverse the logic that was described in Andrew's original clip there that, hey, kids used to be an asset. Now they're a liability. Well, that can change in your family. Like if you start...
• 17:42
  economically productive resources as a family, and you start to build them as a team, then all of a sudden your kids are an asset. And so we need to reverse this really horrible thing that's occurred after the Industrial Revolution where our kids became liabilities and really turned them into assets again.
• 17:59
  That doesn't mean that our kids are slaving away in their childhood. It means that they're contributing appropriately. But as we're going multigenerational, there's all kinds of opportunities that we start to offer our kids to really figure out how can we build things together. So check that out over at familyteams.com slash blueprint and really dive into what was God's design for the family.