Today I saw a piece of advice with a surprisingly forward-looking perspective: as long as people don’t have children, they can put the energy that would go into raising kids toward earning money and planning for retirement, so they won’t end up living too poorly when they’re old. The era of raising children to support yourself in old age has already passed. It feels like now, raising children without them becoming dependents is already something to be truly grateful for—thank heavens and thank the earth.