Why do billionaires have so many children if they’re not prepared to parent them? | Arwa Mahdawi

“I have the best advice for women in business,” Kim Kardashian told Variety in 2022. “Get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.”

The billionaire got a lot of flak for this comment but no one can accuse her of being a hypocrite. It takes serious graft to spin a sex tape into lasting fame and a business empire. That said, like many high-flyers who preach the importance of hard work, the Skims co-founder isn’t above outsourcing the less glamorous domestic labour. She has primary custody of the four kids she shares with her ex-husband, Kanye West, and, according to an interview with the Sunday Times, employs five nannies to take care of them: “One nanny on duty, four on rotation,” she said. Despite having more nannies than kids, she apparently still does the school run. And I bet she doesn’t turn up at the school gate with yoghurt on her shirt like I do.

The revelation about Kardashian’s numerous nannies has caused a bit of a ruckus. Largely because there’s nothing people love more than judging how a woman mothers while ignoring the dad. And I’ll admit I was a bit judgy at first. But, look, if I could afford to contract out all the boring bits of parenthood I would too. You’re not a better mother because you’re running yourself ragged doing absolutely everything.

Back to being judgy though: while there’s nothing wrong with getting help, I don’t really understand the point of having four kids if you don’t have time to parent them all. Particularly as Kardashian’s kids weren’t oopsies: numbers three and four were born via a surrogate because of complications in her earlier pregnancies.

But of course, four kids is rookie numbers compared with some other breeding-obsessed billionaires, many of whom seem keen on procreating but not parenting. The Russian-born tech mogul Pavel Durov has more than 100 biological children in 12 countries via sperm donation. The Chinese billionaire Xu Bo is reported to have more than 100 children via surrogates. And obviously there’s Elon Musk, who has 14 known children.

Meanwhile, for the rest of us it’s getting tougher to afford kids at all. A 2024 Pew Research Center study found that, among adults under 50 who say they’re unlikely to have kids, 36% cited costs as a key factor. Having big families used to be associated with lower economic status. But research shows that’s gradually being flipped on its head. Having multiple kids, and a team of nannies to take care of them, has become the ultimate status symbol. Albeit the only status symbol that’s going to grow up demanding therapy.