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The story
On 5ch’s “Nanademo Jikkyo G” (roughly, “Whatever’s Live” board), a post comparing having a child to an investment — claiming “the moment you have a kid, you’re sitting on a ¥20 million unrealized loss” — sparked a heated debate. Opinions split between posters who calculated that investing that same amount would grow into tens of millions of yen by retirement, and those who countered that once you factor in child allowances and education subsidies, the real burden is much smaller. Then, in the second half of the thread, personal stories of parents who showered their kids with love sat alongside accounts of neglect and verbal abuse, and the conversation shifted from cost-benefit math into a clash of deeply personal views on whether to have children at all.
What people said
Why do you need to be so extravagant?
Because I want to send them to private school so they don't turn out like a 5ch regular.
That's your answer right there.
I don't have a father, and my mother regretted to death that she didn't just live her own life instead.
Well, if you grow up in a household like that, I guess you'd end up thinking this way.
Similar situation to mine, but it went the opposite way.
Single-mother household — when she was dying, my mom told me she was glad she had me, that we were poor but happy.
These days I'm a stay-at-home husband living off my wife (a "himo," slang for a man supported by his partner), though.
That's not even your money, and working 38 years at a ¥4 million annual salary only adds up to ¥152 million anyway.
How much do you actually get back from a kid, though?
With prices rising and wages stuck, you won't save up ¥20 million in a lifetime anyway.
Invest instead of having a kid and it's ¥80 million in 20 years.
Having to be someone's caregiver, that's rough.
Re: #39
Just get a pet instead.
¥20 million is chump change next to that.
A dog would do just fine.
If you think "kids just cost money," you should factor the whole system in.
Having a kid can actually pay off in surprising ways. That's Japan today.
But then you're stuck working until retirement no matter what.
The value of having people to spend your life with is beyond measure.
Don't end up an old single guy like me.
I've got ¥45 million saved and I'm not happy at all.
I'll introduce you to a woman who's into you, so hand over ¥20 million.
I've never once been told that.
Growing up, I heard "I shouldn't have had you" dozens of times — she'd fly into rages, point kitchen knives at me, throw the remote, smash my toys, totally emotionally unstable.
After she threw out the line "If it weren't for you, I could've lived so much more freely" on her way out, I cut off contact completely and don't even know where she lives now.
Damn, that's rough. Seriously sorry you went through that.
Just plowing that straight into personal government bonds is already more than enough to cover four years of private university tuition.
Personal government bonds?
Any investment that yields below the inflation rate is garbage.
If you build a normal portfolio, it ends up as bonds plus stocks anyway.
My parents gave us a ¥1 million wedding gift, ¥10 million when we bought a house, and they're constantly giving gifts and pitching in with the grandkids.
Seeing that makes me realize raising kids is really a lifelong thing.
My whole family and relatives are all divorced, so there's no inheritance like that coming my way — are you bragging? 😠
Just a kiss and a smile from them is worth ¥20 million.
Ugh…
that's just the kid reading your mood and playing along, you know.
Treating your kid as future nursing-care staff is peak "toxic parent" material, lol.
And it just keeps going from there — no motivation to live to see 77 or 80 either.
I was raised by toxic parents, so forget turning 60 — I don't even celebrate regular birthdays.
Just seeing them face-to-face brings out more disgust than anything else.
At work I get treated like a freak for being an older single guy and pushed around, no family left either — just a lonely old man.
Honestly, I'd say a life like that isn't worth living.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
Framing child-rearing costs around the “¥20 million” mark isn’t new in itself — it’s a figure often cited as a rough estimate of what it costs to raise and educate a child through university. What split opinion in this thread was the underlying premise: whether to treat that amount as an “opportunity cost” lost to investing, or to discount the real burden by factoring in support programs like the child allowance and education subsidies. Since investment-return estimates swing wildly depending on the assumed yield and time frame, the figures cited in different posts varied too, and no single number stands as the one correct answer. In the second half of the discussion, the conversation drifted away from economic rationality and into posters’ own memories of how they were raised. That shows factors which can’t be captured by cost-benefit math do shape real-life decisions, and the thread as a whole never settled into a single verdict, economic or emotional.
※This article is an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Nanademo Jikkyo G) thread “Child: “The Moment You Have Me, You’re Carrying a ¥20 Million Unrealized Loss” — Do You Really Need Kids, Minus the Sentiment?“.
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