Not to mention that if you look at what the $15,000 child cost includes, it already factors in things like transportation and shelter costs. Which @[email protected] includes again when budgeting parental costs.

Based on his numbers, removing the duplication, this single income supporting a family of three comes out comfortably in the black. And that’s with childcare costs included! If you are going to pay for childcare, why not have two incomes supporting the family of three? Now you’re saving money hand over fist.

If not being able to accurately calculate costs is the reason why Canadians aren’t having children… Maybe it’s best to keep that out of the gene pool anyway.

The number one reason young people tell me they do not want kids these days is because they cannot afford it.

So they say. I always wonder what the real reason is.

Kids don’t cost much. Moreover, they are a complete time sink. Anything that you used to spend money on vanishes as you won’t have time for it anymore. It is likely the the average person will come out net ahead. And as the kids get a little bit order, they start to become productive, which becomes an income multiplicative factor.

If the average woman in Niger, where the average income is $50 USD per month, can have seven children, anyone in Canada can afford at least one child with ease.

I expect it is the “16 and Pregnant” movement that has dissuaded people from having children. The whole “Don’t ruin your life having children, go to school and get a good job!” message that keeps getting perpetuated. People don’t want to be seen as the rural hick woman pumping out babies. That stereotype has become the scorn of our society.

but remember who has the most power to change these standards. Women didn’t have to demand other women for suffrage, they had to demand it from men.

Not really. Power has traditionally been held by couples, with men putting on the act and women pulling the strings behind the scenes. Our forefathers even created an entire institution known as marriage to establish these alliances formally. In fact, for a long, time women were more likely to be a part of the anti-suffragism movement than of the suffragism movement.

Even voting rights at the time were attached to land, not people. Before industrialization, it was impractical to own land without an entire family available to tend to it. A single man would never be able to cut the wood, grow the crops, care for the animals, and do all the household chores. There isn’t enough time in the day. As such, land ownership too was for couples – thus voting was for couples.

Industrialization was the turning point. It brought increasing opportunities to live a life alone, and those alone started growing more and more disgruntled about a world made for couples.

I believe men do have the power to change this culture of emotional isolationism but it will require self-reflection, effort and a strong demand from oneself and other men to be willing to seek liberation- at the risk of what comes with shaking up the status quo.

I don’t. Such movements happen because of technical advancement. Industrialization, as mentioned, was a pivotal time not only for suffrage but a number of movements. The rise of automation, freeing even more hands from the kitchen, was also a significant period with respect to these topics. These things would have never happened without those new, at the time, technologies changing the way we live.

When the world changes, then people change. There is little evidence that people can change ahead of the world. After all, things happen for a reason. There was logic in giving power to couples at some point in history – until the world changed and it no longer made sense.

Similarly, men are guarded today for a reason. Until some technical advancement lifts that reason from hanging over their heads, it isn’t going anywhere. Going to war against an immovable object doesn’t yield well.