Scott Alexander

One child is draped across his lap and appears to be staring at the camera.

The other one seems to have got Scott's attention by banging on a toy or otherwise grabbing a toy and appears to be in the process of perhaps hurling it off the couch and has obviously captured Scott's attention as he's reaching out with his hand.

Scott writes, After many trials, tribulations, false starts, grabs, shrieks and attacks of opportunity, I finally made it to the part on how fun and easy this all was.

Kaplan's main argument is 1.

We spend much more time and effort on parenting than our parents and grandparents because we think the extra effort will make our kids better, happier, and more successful.

2.

But behavioral genetics finds that parenting doesn't make much difference to later life outcomes.

It's mostly either genes or inscrutable random seeds plus noise.

3.

So you can relax.

Don't run yourself ragged rushing your kids to gymnastics classes they don't even like.

Four, if you ask parents whether they're happy, you get different answers depending on what exact framing you use.

It's kind of a toss-up.

But people who understand and internalize the points above will have a better time than average.

So for them, kids are probably a great bet.

I buy the behavioral genetics.

I buy the ambiguous happiness results.

But how long do parents really spend on childcare?

And how easily can those numbers be cut?

How long do parents really spend on childcare?