Babies are good for you:
Many years ago I read, and may indeed at some time cited, an article that drew on the records of the College of Heralds in England. What that article found was that aristocratic women who had no children lived longer than those who did have children.
Childbirth has to be safer now than during much of the time such records were kept, but I have sometimes wondered, “If having babies makes you die younger, am I offering to send people to their death?”
I shall worry no longer. (Pro Creation ECONOMIST vol. 405 no. 8815 December 15, 2012 page 79) A recent study done by Esben Agerbo of The University of Aarhus in Denmark and published in the JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND COMMUNITY HEALTH looked at people who wanted children, as evidenced by their having sought medical assistance in establishing a pregnancy, and compared the death rate for those who did indeed have a child afterwards with the death rate for those who failed. The parents had a significantly reduced death rate. Deaths for fathers were a third of those for non fathers and for mothers a fourth of non mothers.
He controlled for things like age, education and income.
So there you have it. The weight of the evidence is that having children is good for your health. His best guess as to the cause is that parents tend to take better care of themselves. That’s good enough for me.
So my conscience is good. Making the sacrifice of investing in children is good for the survival of the society and all in all does you no harm.
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