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As a father to two children, there is one specific question that comes up frequently, in many situations:

What benefit is there to having children?

Leaving aside the numerous attractive starting points for discussing this question, first I would like to start off with saying, in my personal opinion, that children are your most lasting memory and impact on the world. Children have a profoundly positive impact on your life as well.

On the other side of the table, all too often there’s something displayed at every step talking about how fewer and fewer people are starting families.

There’s endless reasons why that’s happening, and it’s not always as definite what a solution to that problem would be.

Let’s focus on a single reason for this that has been pushing more and more people away from starting families:

Raising children costs too much.

I agree as I have experienced this personally, although that’s also true about nearly everything since the start of this decade.

This is a serious topic and I fully understand that reality has to be taken into account; some people simply can’t afford having children, on top of all their other expenses.

For the sake of this discussion, the focus here is on people that can afford to have children although decide not to, largely because of the upfront cost constantly being displayed by so many forms of media scares them from the idea.

Another consideration when analyzing the topic of child-raising being expensive:

-What is the real cost of raising children?

This can’t be solely measured in terms of dollar amounts; there are so many different ways that raising children cost parents. Lack of time, attention, energy, focus, additional stress.

All of these are also very real costs of raising children. Wouldn’t these play a role in making someone think twice about having children?

I’ve struggled many times with finding a balance between all of these points; it’s definitely a very fine line between too much and just enough to keep going; burn-out is a real, ever-present risk.

Really, nobody that has gone through the first 10 years of child-raising will say there’s anything that you’ll gain from it; more likely they will say that it’s full of stress and you’ll never have time for yourself, and so on.

I agree, it’s definitely not easy, although I continuously remind myself there are just as many wonderful moments as there are difficult ones. It just takes more effort to recognize and enjoy the positive ones when they do happen.

Should you consider your children an investment? Absolutely!

They give you the ultimate return on investment.

However, there has to be a downside, right?

The key is patience; that investment will pay off one day, even if it doesn’t seem like it when you’re still changing diapers for more than a year…

What do you get from planning a long-term investment in your children?

Unlike other advice and topics you hear, with children, returns can be achieved with even the minimum amount of investment in time, money or unconditional love. With children, the many forms of investment that you can provide can offset any other area where you possibly haven’t provided enough; For example, even if you can’t reach your goal for financial resources put aside for your children, the resource of time spent on them will be more than sufficient to make up for it.

Memories, knowledge, happiness, love, experience, tradition, physical and emotional growth, both for yourself and for your children. These are all things that can be achieved with time, energy or financial investment.

This whole idea has been on my mind for a while now, of having a go at an in-depth look at the idea of investing in your children. The term “investment” may be an odd way to look at it, although honestly that’s a direct result of my lifestyle where everything is intertwined; business and personal life, fitness and learning, cooking and family team building, etc. There’s little in the way of barriers preventing cross-over from one to the other.

There are difficult periods of time as the perfect balance is a never-ending work in progress, although I rarely give up, knowing what the end result will be if I persevere and see it through to the finish.

Hopefully this gives all of you some food for thought, to look at something in life from a different perspective!

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Look at the idea above through the lens of the history of a people, regardless of nationality:

When everything had to be done manually, having more hands to help with the work was the ultimate goal to reach. Nobody had the means to buy the help, so what other option were people left with?

There was only one logical decision on how to solve this problem. Make more children!

Children will give you the same things you’ve given your parents, and maybe even more.

Not too long ago, children were the only assistance many parents and grandparents had.

There was a stronger community bond amongst neighbours, although for many tasks and jobs, neighbours weren’t always there to help, nor could they be expected to.

Raising a barn, sure, everyone in the area got together to help out.

Cutting the grass or making sure that household chores are taken care of? The same can’t be said there…

Family members helped each other out with everything; they would all have roles to play in the household. There was rarely anything to worry about when family was there to help.

As the older generations helped younger generations with learning, the younger generations in turn helped older generations with matters that old age limited their ability to do. It was a continuous cycle, always something was given in return.

Is this still a standard practice today? No, there have been too many changes to family structure and society as a whole. That doesn’t mean that some aspects of this can’t be adapted to modern day families. There’s little to lose to try something different and see what changes it brings you.