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I love kids, but I seriously don't want anyone having kids who doesn't 100% want them. Kids deserve to be wanted, and people have a right to live their lives as they choose.
Right? Do we really want people who aren't sure if they want to be parents being parents? I'd rather the next generation be raised by people who are 100% invested in having kids.
Edit: I'm completely okay with the human population declining significantly btw, that's a feature not a bug
What I REALLY don't get is that over population and natural resources depleting has been a huge worry over the past few decades so why exactly would the population shrinking be a bad thing?
Edit: I was posing this as a general question not as a rebuttal to the above commenter.
It's typically all economic. For one, we need young people to pay into social security of the older generations.
But probably most importantly, labor shortages drive wages up and give workers more power over companies. Think about all the articles about "millennials killed department stores and chain restaurants etc etc". Those places paid people 7.25 an hour and they deserved to be killed honestly, but it's framed as a bad thing
It's interesting that that's exactly what got Europe developing all the technology they did in the past. After the plagues there wasn't enough people to continue as before so they had to invent labour saving devices and the poor population became better off with higher wages and more land to farm. Without plagues who knows where we'd be now. This situation isn't any different, we need to invent new ways to live for the sake of the environment and ourselves.
It also has a lot to do how retirement works in many countries - usually money for it is collected from the new generation so if the population of a country is getting older (longer living retirees and less kids) then obviously the money coming in is getting smaller. The problem is that the model needs infinite growth to actually work since the moment you get more retirees than working adults it stops working.
Economists have predicted that we should be advancing to the 4th stage civilisation but the jump is going to be brutal. I.e. the 4 stages are based on the order of importance of 3 branches of the economy - farming and fishing (counting as one), industry and services. It goes something like that (lowering in importance): 1 - farming and fishing, services and nonexistant industry. 2 - farming and fishing, industry and services. 3 - industry, services, farming and fishing. Finally, the hipothetical 4 - services, industry, farming and fishing. 4 is predicted to be a society where number of jobs will rapidly fall with most still available being in services (so most probably this means high automation of production). This trend has been slowly showing itself with more and more jobs being easily replaceable with machines and rapidly falling rate of self employment (more than 90% at 1910 and 10.1% in 2015 in US).
We should be thinking about rebuilding our social programs to prepare for this but obviously most politicians don't care about things that will not guarantee them votes right now.
For one, we need young people to pay into social security of the older generations.
Such bullshit. You could fund the entire social security just fine if the rich were properly taxed. If property ownership were properly taxed and loopholes closed. But no. We need cheap labor to keep pushing this problem down further and further the generations.
you can't fix that problem by just having more people. It's the infinite growth problem. It's going to implode sometime.
I think we'd be more accepting of the death of businesses if we knew it wasn't harming people. If we had a meaningful safety net like many other developed countries, perhaps we'd more willing to give JCPenney the old yeller.
They want us to shop, but they don't want to pay is, and they're trying to figure out how to use tech to get rid of as many jobs as possible while also trying to deny social programs to take care of people without enough resources. In other words, we're supposed to be born with money
Exactly. But even this is more of a system of a deeper root problem- modern societies have put all of our value on wealth, to the exclusion of health, happiness, and a clean environment. When nations view ALL of their success based on GDP growth, we cannot have have populations fall because we need an increasing population to increase jobs and economic value, to increase the GDP. As a society we have to start valuing things beyond monetary wealth, and we have to start telling our politicians that our values have changed.
Because economic growth is a ponzi scheme.
People worry that there won't be enough young people to care for the rapidly aging population. Immigration seems like an obvious solution to get more working aged people in the country but the idea has fallen out of favour politically.
And there's also this racist undercurrent about making sure that the world is populated enough with the "right" kind of people or else the people in (insert whatever developing world country the speaker doesn't like) will overtake us.
I don't agree with it AT ALL but that seems to be a common trend amongst people who worry about the population shrinking.
Oh yes, I have heard a lot of that notion that the problem is that "we" (white people, Europeans, westerners, whatever) produce less babies than "them" (darker hued people, people in developing countries, the Chinese, whatever) and that's the problem, and when I ask why exactly, they say that first off, "our" babies would be better equipped to solve any problems we globally have. I don't really see the truth in that, but I do know, that the privileged first world babies produce so much more waste per capita han the others, so in the earth health POV it's exactly the right type of people whose birth rates are declining.
not forgetting "white genocide" the right are insane, they have been in control for decades and the world is in chaos. immigration is the answer to a lot of issues, allow world peoples to access high levels of education, share the plundered wealth we stole from the rest of the world back*
*talking about the dying united kingdom here.
They say it's about caring for the old people, but I don't believe it. It's about paying for them. As a rule, politicians in general haven't cared overly much for the elderly before. The pensions they're owed, however, that's a different story.
Yeah, iirc pension money is all in one pot and the current workers pay for the previous generation. So if there are less new workers entering the system then that's a problem.
But most people understand it in terms of "who will look after me when I'm old" and old people are more likely to vote (at least in my country).
One of the amusing things of Brexit is that Britain needs immigration to do many jobs we can't fill including care home workers as well as people coming in to cover the falling birth rate to ensure there is enough income to pay for health services and pensions for the old. The oldest groups (50+) voted for Brexit by a significant majority and as a result we aren't getting as many European immigrants due to uncertainty of immigration status and laws which will long term harm the oldest groups
I totally agree.
But surely EVERY generation of kids have been raised by loads of people who don't want to be parents? One of the nice things about the discussion happening here is that it can actually happen and people can act on it, which would have been much more difficult for people to do in the past.
Maybe that's why so many parents have been so fucked up.
Literally most of every generation going back has essentially been raised by children with little understanding of parenting or child psychology. It's honestly amazing that society doesn't collapse and that we haven't already destroyed the planet.
I think we're doing about as well as you'd expect for those circumstances—sociopathic norms baked into societies and war is just a thing we sometimes do.
Exactly. We can improve our sustainability as a species by using our minds to over ride our biology. As a a person with childhood / complex trauma I would be really happy if every parent has to pass a test of emotional and practical competency before having children. Or whatever let's stop having kids until capitalism fucks off.
I don't want children. I don't hate children. I think that every child should have a good life. A better life than with me as a parent, because no child should have a parent who doesn't want children. (and to everyone who has ever said to me "oh you'll change your mind once you hold your baby!" Dude, what if I don't? You're willing to take that gamble with a baby's future? I"m sure as hell not.)
I think that people who really and truly want children should have them, and no one else should. No one should have children because they think they should or they got pressured into it.
I already have a child : ME
I'm doing a piss poor job of adulting me but I'm trying . I don't have the headspace even for a real cat which I would love to have someday but for now my fake crookshanks will have to do .
That's kinda like what I say to people. I'm an adult with a real job and capacity to care for animals, but dang on the days where I barely can put pants on myself, all others relying on me would be pantsless too and I don't think that's really acceptable or fair to them.
Seriously. I feel like I'm drowning under the weight of just keeping everything for my individual life chugging along well. I regularly eat cubes of cheese for dinner because I'm too zonked to do anything else. How would this pan out for a kid?
I do keep my dog very well spoiled. He's a good member of society, but infinitely easier to care for than a kid.
The worst part about having cats when you're a mess is their occasionally judgmental looks. Otherwise they're not too much to handle otherwise.
I'm right there with you! I'm on the weird end of the spectrum - I can't have kids. I've wanted them since I was six. Married now for over 20 years, mostly financially stable, and turned the hell off by surrogacy. Adoption is still on the table. Hubby and I have both gone through the rage and depression of watching people who have no desire for kids popping them out like pez. We've also put that behind us and are changing our picture.
I love that people now have options and that outmoded ideals of motherhood, and parenthood, are going away. No one, male, female and non conforming, should be made to feel bad for their choices, period.
Jesus you had your priorities in order. I wanted to be able do wheelies on my bike when I was 6. I still don't want kids.
Meh, don't compare yourself like that. People are allowed to like and think about all kinds of shit. Get out there and do them wheelies, if you still can.
It wasn't so much priorities as it was awesome maternal figures in my life. Some kids want to be a doctor, carnie, astronaut, teacher, or accountant. I wanted to be a STAH wife and mother. Universe had other plans for me, same as it does everyone. :) We've all got our own stories to write and every day is a fresh, blank page. Kids, no kids, fur or finned kids, wheelies when you're 80, I hope you get to enjoy the hell outta yours!
If you don't mind me asking, can you explain why you're against surrogacy?
Not the OC but I'm also turned off by surrogacy (and IVF). My opinion is that there are SO many kids in this world that need homes (and overpopulation is a very real problem) that to dump your money into this expensive, medically invasive process just so YOUR genes can be propagated seems inherently selfish and greedy.
However, the most important thing here is that I would defend a person's legal right to these processes 100%. Just because I, morally, have a problem with something does NOT give me the right to take away another person's right to use their bodies as they wish.
Edit reworded for clarity
Just throwing this out there, but adoption and surrogacy is often significantly, significantly more expensive than IVF. Insurance is mandated to cover IVF in some US states, so for example under my insurance plan IVF costs ~$2000 per round. (EDIT: and out of pocket a round of IVF is $12k). Adoption of a kid is tens of thousands of dollars, typically the price is $40-50k where I am. You can adopt a kid through the foster system for much less money but the idea behind fostering is reunification, so you shouldn't get a foster kid thinking they will be adoptable. Additionally, kids coming though the foster system often have challenges that first time parents might not be able and willing to meet. I certainly don't think we'd be set up to adopt an older kid with known disabilities.
Adoption can also take years, and comes with a lot of bureaucracy, such as home inspections. Our apartment would not pass an adoption home inspection, but doing IVF frees us up to see if we have a kid, and then move when they're ~2 years old. In low cost of living areas where everyone can afford a 2 bed condo/house this might not be a big issue, but it is a problem in HCOL areas. I make 6 figures but if we don't have a kid, we're going to live in a much cheaper condo than we would have to get if we had a kid. Getting one preemptively for an adoption that might never happen isn't financially savvy.
The reasons I listed above are why we're looking into IVF; I couldn't care less about propagating genes. Other people could have different views about that, I realize, but just showing my opinion on it.
Adoption can be prohibitively expensive and comes with serious ethical considerations and emotional risks (adoptions fall through often, and it can be devastating in addition to a large financial loss), and international adoption is an ethical nightmare and minefield of human trafficking. Adoption can be a wonderful thing but it is by no means obviously more ethical than IVF and it simply isn't a feasible option for many people who want kids. Aside from literal and figurative cost, being disabled, atheist, single, or LGBTQ can drastically reduce your odds of getting picked.
I think surrogacy is a wonderful thing, just maybe not right for me. We started looking for a surrogate almost two years ago and had some promising leads, but most ended up in disappointment before we even got to the phone call stage. No one close to us was willing / able, so we started looking around for others. Imagine, if you will, a great bar filled with desperate, deserving, wonderful people who are looking for one person who fits one narrow set of criteria. Everyone in the place is looking for that one and the bar is filled to the point where there's only one person who can fit the criteria for every thousand people already there. Then it becomes a bidding war when that one person walks in - bidding for time, attention, personality, and yes, even money.
Surrogates looking to match can be overwhelmed. It's not uncommon for a potential surrogate to have upwards of fifty to a hundred prospective parents vying for her attention. And the hard part hasn't even begun. Next is a long series of doctor visits, negotiations, contracts, psychological checks and background checks. All hugely necessary steps. The part that started leaving a bad taste in my mouth, even though it was honest and up front, was the attitudes of more and more surrogates. Many would talk about the altruism, then turn around and talk about how they could get more money from International intended parents. Or I'd get ghosted. Or I'd connect with someone only to find out she really didn't meet the criteria, or was a little...off. Think of it like very high stakes internet dating.
Then there's the possibility of going through an agency. Add at least another $30-40k to the already $100k bill. And there's no guarantee of getting matched with a surrogate.
On top of infertility issues for a heterosexual couple, the stigma of not being woman enough to carry your own baby kicks in - at least it did for me. Single sex or even single people looking for a surrogate have it even worse in some respects. It's an incredibly complex, deeply personal and intimate process that takes an emotional toll. Many of the potential surrogates I talked with approached things from a very business-like mindset - transactional. And that's perfectly valid. It just didn't feel right at all to me to ask "so, how much will it cost to borrow your body for a year to eighteen months?"
And that didn't even factor in the discomfort of jumping into the shark infested waters of surrogate hunting, the idea that there were other people more worthy, or the really uncomfortable feeling of being desperate to find THE ONE. It's an incredibly difficult and draining / wearing process the requires a woman, especially, to make herself utterly vulnerable. You're asking another woman to do something that should be as natural as breathing, that millions of other women can do without thinking about it.
Ok, that went on longer than I'd planned, but it's a small peek into the mind of an intended parent. All of the things I've mentioned were my own experience - mileage may vary! Long story short, I got turned off by the transactional nature of things.
One thing I hate about pro lifers is they can't seem to wrap their heads around how awful it is to grow up poor and hearing your single mother utter the words "I could have aborted you but so and so convinced me otherwise". I was very socially awkward as a teenager as a result and did not know how to react to kindness or intimacy. Tool about a decade working as an adult in the social setting of a coffee shop to get socially calibrated properly.
EDIT: In the interest of essentially replying to everyone who replied, I come from the Philippines where abortion is outright illegal and carries years in jail if caught (yay heavily catholic country). Many women still risk an infection or death with some sketchy people who will give an abortion because these women know they can't take care of a child especially after growing up poor (like my mother did). I'm more understanding of my mom wanting to go through with an abortion rather than resenting me for derailing her life goals of getting out of poverty, which it did somewhat because she was of the small number of university graduates coming from the farms. On the bright side, she's now doing well in a government job in Canada and is realizing she's been a less than ideal mother back then. I think I'm only able to even interact with her because I had all that socialization as an adult but for the most part, we're not close and I treat her with quite a bit of distance for someone that's my mother.
Yeah, that is called emotional abuse now. It really screws up a kid to be told every day how they are not wanted and how they ruined their parent's life.
I honestly think I would have preferred to have been aborted. I grew up feeling wholly unwanted all the time, and no one at home was even a basic level of nice to me most of the time. Adult me cannot accept the idea that anyone would actually want me around. As soon as people don't specifically need me for something, I feel like my presence is offensive and try to find an excuse to leave, and it has lead to a deeply uncomfortable anxiety any time I'm around people.
I'm sorry to hear that. You deserve to love yourself and how far you've come. Hopefully one day soon you can break through the anxiety around others. You're very insightful and emotionally aware so I think you have an excellent chance.
Yeah dude . . . and unfortunately I was quite correct: no one did want me around. It's not that I'm so bad, it's that people want to feel certain ways about themselves and my presence doesn't bring those feels.
Perhaps fellating people's egos is a skill that can be learned. But not by me, apparently.
These guys only care for "pro birth" but not pro life
Not even that: those people aren't pro-life, they are pro-"me me me!"
Everything they say, want and do is instilled by selfishness and the desire to keep certain demographics (in case of the abortion debate women) under their thumbs.
Also hate the whole "you can just give them up for adoption" argument when costs of raising a kid are mentioned. So a person who can't afford a kid is supposed to be able to take time off work to see the doctor a bunch of times and pay for the appointments, prescriptions, any complications, labor & delivery...
Try every rant starting with if I didn't have you my life would be easier or any gazillion variations on that line .
Knowing your existence and that of siblings is the reason a person isn't happy fulfilled dreamless, didn't have option or couldn't pursue their dream because they had to feed you and made it clear they resent you or situation to a kid it's the same even if parents honestly meant only the situation .
It's a lot it's fucking heavy to carry as a load . I ended up trying to be as discreet as possible never wanting anything trying to be invisible, some siblings acted out . It's funny how siblings react differently or variant degree to same living conditions. Now hello basket case and issue forming any kind of social bond. It is what it is.
Life should be about quality not quantity.
Exactly, and furthermore the same people complaining about women choosing fewer kid will turn around and complain about over population too
It's amazing to me that NOT having children is considered selfish, especially when so many people have children so they can be parents, or so they won't be lonely, or so someone will take care of them when they're older. And then to demand grandchildren only because they want them! All of that seems more selfish than choosing not to have children.
Right? I want kids (and am actively trying to have one). Why? Because I WANT ONE. The whole biological purpose of reproducing is to pass on your own genes. Wanting to have kids is entirely self-serving.
How is it selfish to NOT have a kid? Selfish in opposition to whom? Someone who doesn't even exist?
I sometimes think that people with kids who claim it's selfish to NOT have kids are trying to justify a choice they made that has now made them miserable. They regret having the kids they have, but can't face the fact that they made a bad decision. So they reframe it as being a somehow 'selfless' act so that they can shift the blame. These types of people also tend to be the ones that believe their children owe them something for being born.
Exactly this. People who say others are selfish if they don't have kids are people who see themselves as martyrs for putting up with their own, if they accept childfree as a valid and unselfish life choice that would break their reality. They NEED a justification for their choice.
Some people, probably. In my experience, it's parents who want grandchildren and consider their children 'selfish' if they don't provide them. I've never understood this point of view - to me it's more selfish to demand someone else to give up their time, money and body because YOU want grandkids.
That's also part and parcel with the generation that is currently demanding grandkids. Boomers fucked the economy, and instead of understanding what that means for parents, they can only bitch and moan about what they won't get.
And its almost always because one of their friends has a grandkid, and they want to keep up with the Jones's
I think a lot of it is the realization that without a bunch of unwanted kids in the world there won't be enough unwanted people to do all the shit jobs, like take care if people in nursing homes or wash dishes at a restaurant.
Military and prison industrial complexes LOVE unwanted kids. Because they usually grow up into unhappy adults with lots of behavior problems. Thus they either join the military or in prison, where they can continue to generate profits for the 1%.
Gay lady here. My wife and I want kids and she will likely be carrying -- we only want one kid. I can't tell you the number of times of been told the following:
My mom desperately wants grandchildren, but apparently, if they don't share her genes she'll be disappointed.
Oh, and I guess I'll never understand motherhood or what love for a child is like unless I push one out of my vagina.
It's usually people who think there's some kind of family in "continueing your bloodline" and not doing that is selfish to the rest of your family.
It's ridiculous.
Have you ever mentioned adoption to the same people? 9 times out of 10 they use the same arguments people use against shelter dogs: it'll have learnt bad habits, it'll be emotionally messed up, it was given up for a reason. It's the worst!
Now I'm 100% pro shelter dog but there's an extra level of fucked up in watching someone go from talking about how human life is precious and how you don't know love until your a parent to viciously denouncing helpless infants/children.
I was adopted. I was born, immediately handed off to a foster for a few months until the paperwork went through, and then passed on to my "parents." All within less than a year of being born, no time to learn bad habits, no time to get emotionally messed up, but guess what, turns out I've got autism, horrible eyesight, asthma, heel spurs, I have some scars on my ankles from some correction surgery that I have forgotten what kind of defect it was. Once when I was very young I asked if an older brother could be adopted so I would have siblings. I was informed that older children have problems that my parents didn't want to deal with. Well, jokes on them because as time passed and I got older all those problems they didn't want to have to deal with manifested in me. I am a waste of space, a money pit, a sad pathetic excuse for a human being. I don't understand how families work, I don't understand love, I don't understand a lot of things. My adoptive father was a wonderful person, I feel he deserved to have well adjusted successful children that he could be proud of, but he ended up with a selfish wife who couldn't have children and got saddled with me. He died over a decade ago and I feel sad that I am/was incapable of being a person a father could be proud of. I think any person who wants kids should be prepared that they may end up with a disabled troubled child, adopted or not, that could possibly need care or assistance for the rest of their lives, and if they can't deal with or afford that, they shouldn't have kids. The person who didn't want me should have aborted me. I really hope I pass away before I am left totally alone and scared.
I hate that you feel this way. You're not a waste of space because you were given extra hurdles in life. But at the same time I can understand your feelings and that you're probably more than sick of trying to always work harder to understand. All I can say is I wish our healthcare was better, I've seen one person severely affected by autism go on to lead a full life with a career because her wealthy and loving parents sunk A LOT of time and money into therapies and courses. It makes me sad to think of all the other people who can't get that support and feel the way you do. You deserve more and better.
I have a rescued dog from hurricane Harvey. He's fucking crazy but I love him I can tell he's seen some shit. I'm waiting for him to be over his puppy phase. He's 3 and 70 pounds ha! Also I have 3 kids ( not rescued) also crazy.
Have you ever mentioned adoption to the same people? 9 times out of 10 they use the same arguments people use against shelter dogs: it'll have learnt bad habits, it'll be emotionally messed up, it was given up for a reason. It's the worst!
Now I'm 100% pro shelter dog but there's an extra level of fucked up in watching someone go from talking about how human life is precious and how you don't know love until your a parent to viciously denouncing helpless infants/children.
Do people you know actually say that about adopting kids? I mean not being sure you can manage an emotionally distressed child is a valid reason to not adopt, but the rest of that is just fucked up.
Not the person you are replying to. But I've heard it as well.
People want their baby to look like them, I've heard that before. Some subtle racism in those people.
Not who you responded to, but I have actually heard those things out of peoples' mouths before, myself.
It's... incredibly twisted.
Speaking as someone who is a parent I can make this comment about love and having children: If someone told you that you don't know love because you don't have children then they've misunderstood love. What I can say above love and having children is that your perspective changes.
Having children changed my perspective on love and I really don't see how one who has kids can avoid the perspective shift. I'm not here to say one perspective is better than the other but having your own children isn't the only way to see these perspective shifts on love. I believe love has more than two perspectives. There's probably over 7 billion perspectives on it at this moment and it has no limits.
In my opinion, the more I can learn about love and the many wondrous gifts it has to bring, the better, er perhaps wiser, I become.
"Continuing the bloodline" is only relevant if you're royalty, and royalty hasn't been relevant since the first World War.
I mostly can empathize with all kinds of worldviews even if they are the opposite of mine but THIS is one of the most ridiculous ones I hear quite often. What kind of logic is this? First, they are dead they don't fucking care at all. Second, you have no idea what they have wanted, I am almost certain that the first humans would understand, given the state of our world and third just bc they are ancestors doesn't make them good people that need to be honored, my ancestors were nazis and I am sure every single humans family tree has enough vile people in there to safely not give a fuck about their wishes.
I agree 100%. My husband and I have two kids. We love them so much and they make me very happy. It was a totally selfish choice because we didn't have them for any other reason but because we wanted them.
If we had more resources I would maybe want one more because I am apparently a crazy person but we are stretched so thin with our money and time that it just wouldn't work. So two it is! I have found the limits of my selfishness.
You sound amazing and I am glad your 'selfish' choices made you happy! I made my 'selfish' choice to not have children and hope it will make/keep me happy too! Here's to our selfishness ;)
As a woman who has chosen to be childfree I have encountered this accusation of selfishness few times.
My understanding of this claim of selfishness is that when you don't have children all your time and energy is spent on you which is selfish but when you have children you're giving your time and effort and energy on someone else which is the opposite of selfish.
The funny thing is that because I don't have my own children I'm able to give a lot of my time to supporting my sisters as they raise their children and my parents as they start to require more care.
My mum knows that have been struggling massively with my one child, and I have said outright not to expect any more. Yet she responds by telling me stories that she thinks might change my mind. Like the woman she knew whose 4th kid was just like mine sleep wise and she said that if that kid had been born first instead, she never would have had another one. She wants grandchildREN.
I want to put my energy into being a good mum for the kid I have and I honestly don't think I could do it with a second kid, even if they were a perfect sleeper from birth. Why can't everyone just respect that?
My first (and better be only) child is due any week now and people get so shocked when I say I am absolutely not doing this again. Always get the "oh that'll change" response. I know me, I have an anxiety disorder, we waited until our 30s because I've learned better coping skills. I would not be able to raise multiple children and take care of myself. That's not selfish, that's self awareness.
Even made a deal with my husband that he's gonna get snipped after she's born. The response to that is always "you know that's not always 100% effective" wink wink. Or "why is it on him, get your tubes tied." That ones my favorite, because believe me I would but women don't have control of their bodies like men do. But that's a rant for another time.
If you had anxiety, watch out for postpartum depression or postpartum anxiety and get treatment for it ASAP. They usually are strongly correlated and it can destroy your life.
Absolutely. I've been drilling that in to my husband. I know it's hard to notice signs about yourself. I've been pretty chill this whole time, I've had 2 or 3 meltdowns, but that could be regular pregnancy shit. Still, makes me worry that when my hormones tank out that it's gonna got me hard.
if you end up getting a C section you could probably request this since they're in there already kinda thing.
They won't always do it. I gave birth Tuesday, I'm 33, this is my second child, and I'm physically disabled. They still wouldn't tie them bc "I might change my mind"
Because you're 33 and lack the agency of a 20 year old dude who can get snipped whenever he wants. 🤮
Yeeeeeppp. My husband is gonna get snipped and then I'll get a hysterectomy when I can find a doctor willing to do it.
It'd probably be near impossible to find anyone willing to do a purposeful hysterectomy without medical reason. The long term side effects can be horrendous, not to mention the risk of death during the procedure.
If you threaten to sue them, they'll change their minds real fast. At least, that's how it worked for a friend of mine who did exactly that. She almost died with her first one, and her second one only happened because birth control failed. They STILL didn't want to tie her tubes during the C-section because "you might want another one."
That was 10 years ago, and guess what... she still doesn't want another baby.
Unfortunately it's too late now lol. I do plan to search for a Dr to just have a full hysterectomy done after I recover. And I definitely am not having another. This one, I had a copper IUD inserted when I got pregnant. And now she's still in NICU. It's been a mess and it sucks.
Wow, best of luck to you and the new baby. I hope the hysterectomy works out. My friend's baby happened while she had an IUD too. Seems to fail a lot more often than is advertised.
Thank you.
And yeah, I definitely wasn't expecting it to fail. But here we are. That's part of the reason I want to go with a hysterectomy. My body definitely can't handle another pregnancy.
I had terrible pregnancies with my first 2 kids, the second ending with pre-eclampsia. They refused to tie my tubes because I was only 22. But they gave my (now ex) husband a vasectomy at the same age. I ended up having 2 more kids, my third I ended up in heart failure after she was born. Still wouldn't tie my tubes (I was 35). Birth control failed and I ended up pregnant with my fourth and last baby and that pregnancy ended when I was 35 weeks due to Pre-eclampsia (I was 37 and he is fine). I finally was able to get a uterine ablation last March at the age of 42, now facing a partial hysterectomy because of fibroids.
I love every single kid I have, they are 22, 20, 7, and 5 now, but I came dangerously close to dying with my last two and if I had, then what? Why is it Ok to deny women the absolute choice in what they want to do with their bodies yet men can get snipped at 18 if they so choose? Boggles my mind.
Ughhh this makes me furious!
I despise the "why is it on him?" argument.
"Well, the burden of contraception is ALMOST ALWAYS on the female, so we're sharing the burden and it's his turn now."
Also vasectomies are less complicated than tubal ligations, cheaper as a procedure if your health coverage isn't that great, and come with fewer risks.
Welcome to the judgement cycle that parents face:
1 kid: "They'll be lonely! Don't you want them to have a friend?"
2 kids: "That's great, but you've got 2 boys/girls. Don't you want to try for just one more of the opposite gender?
3 kids: Everyone thinks you either have too few or too many kids, and offers advice accordingly
4 kids: "Wow, you must be really stressed with all those kids. Were you one of those young, dumb teen parents?" (No I'm in my 30's, thanks)
5 kids: "Slow down, no need to repopulate a small country!" (K, I'll return one back to the hospital)
6 kids: "Are you religious weirdos?"
7 kids: "Have you heard that you can get your tubes tied?"
8 kids: Brain literally explodes
Currently nursing my week old as I'm writing this. We're waiting a couple years before my husband gets snipped but we're 90% sure this will be our only child for a number of reasons (and he's an easy baby!). People have been talking about a sibling since I was pregnant and always bring up how horrible and lonely he'll be as an only child. The look on their face when I tell them I'm an only child is priceless.
Some are awful sleepers. My first was so terrible. Just wouldn't fall asleep, not in the car, not in the stroller, hardly even on me he'd eventually scream himself into exhaustion. Then eventually he just liked rocking, but only if I was standing.
My second is wonderful. Doesn't even like being rocked. Goes to sleep when we're out and in his bed. Even so it's hard work and I don't think anyone that doesn't want kids should be made up feel bad it can be so hard.
Our first is a fantastic sleeper. We have to wake her up or she will sleep for 14 hours straight.
Our second coming up I have a feeling is going to be the terrible one!
Same. I have one kid (he's 2 now)
Would never ever ever ever have a second one. Ever.
I love the one I have, but taking care of a baby sucks ass.
The first year is rough, even for a good baby. They're messy, can't do anything for themselves, can't communicate, are expensive, and outgrow clothes and toys so fast that you can't keep up.
Between pregnancy and the first 12 months, I feel like I lost a solid 2 years of my life with each kid. I like kids a lot, but babies wear you out REAL quick.
You could always tongue-in-cheek offer to have another one and then give it up to her for adoption. Something tells me she wants grandchildren for her sake and not for yours or the kids. It might get her to drop the topic in short order.
Nah man, she just wants to play with it and then hand it back to the frazzled parent.
I have offered to leave our son with her overnight, so that she can wake up to her favourite little boy in the whole wide world first, second and third thing in the morning but I was politely turned down. I'm going to settle for her weekly afternoon of free baby sitting instead :)
This makes me want to do that to even strangers who tell me to have kids.
Why can't everyone just respect that?
Cause you're preventing them from getting what they want at no cost to them and great cost to you.
I have 1 child and my in-laws pressured us to have more. My husband is a child of 3 and would have made an excellent only child. My daughter is 90% him and has said since she was 6 that she does not want siblings. Well lucky for her neither do we! One is plenty, especially in this messed up and expensive world. We can afford to do lots of things with our small family. She does theatre and loves it. We are not interested in taking our quality of life away like my in-laws did. My husband grew up poor his whole life and is nothing like his parents. It's like they want us to struggle like they did and for what? Quality over quantity is the way to go and nothing is guaranteed in life. We just want to live the best we can with what we have.
I have two adult children, one of whom is married, and all I hear is, "when are they having kids?" I don't understand this intense need to repopulate! I don't care if they ever have kids! What is the need for grandchildren? Does it give people an opportunity to try and do what you didn't with your own kids? I see it often leading to fights about parenting and it seems like it's just an opportunity to play with cute kids but don't have to look after them! If they have kids that's great, if they want them. If they don't, then it means I get to be friends with my adult children and I'm not a babysitter for my retirement! Win/win😁
I have three children and that argument never made any sense to me either? How is it selfish? Are there little ghost babies waiting for a womb who now will never be born? Have kids, don't have kids, who cares? Honestly, the only time I have an opinion is when someone has kids when they clearly should not. That is selfish.
Are there little ghost babies waiting for a womb who now will never be born?
*looks nervously at the Mormons*
Haha, yep! That's literally it. Mormons would say you're selfish because you're depriving an existing spirit of a chance at life.
This explains SO much about my in-laws...
That's a new one so they're just lining up waiting on their turn to be born . What kind of hell is that ughh
Sounds like bullshit made up by a cult that knew the fastest way to grow is to procreate as much. Goes with the polygamy thing too.
I know of I was running a cult that needed the numbers to be considered a threat to outsiders I'd guilt trip women into being baby factories. After all, children are easy to indoctrinate.
Thank you, that sounded familiar and I couldn't remember why.
Right? Pretty much all reasons people choose to have kids boil down to "I want them." Not saying that is a bad thing, but it is, by definition, a selfish thing to do.
I wonder what the people who think not having kids is selfish have to say about people who have multiple kids because they want a boy or a girl specifically? I'd say trying again and again because you didn't get a kid with the "right" chromosomes is FAR more selfish than not having any kids. You're making a human being, not buying scratch cards. Yet this is somehow more socially acceptable than a woman saying "no thanks".
Agree, so many people have children to fulfill a personal, psychological need/goal rather doing it because they know they can give a child a fully great and important life. It's part of the human condition unfortunately.
Because it is. But they like to pretend it's not. So they call people without kids selfish because we have free time and usually some extra money to buy whatever we want way more than they do. I guess I could see my wanting to not have to spend money on kids as selfish...if I had kids. But I don't.
I absolutely agree. I just don't understand what's considered selfish about it. It would be selfish to have a child, then not pay it any attention and put myself first. But when that child doesn't exist, who am I hurting? Baffling.
I'd also like to add that having children is NO guarantee that they will take care of you when you're old. Sadly, the opposite may even prove to be true. So that's dumb reasoning, as well.
The only reason I have ever remotely wanted children was to give my life focus which is a selfish reason. But as far as I can tell everyone has children for more or less selfish reasons. It seems to be that the goal of a parent should be for there child to be the best version of themselves, or to at least be better than they are. And it seems to me that most people don't have kids for that reason.
Also, I suppose the millions of parents out there who had children by mistake are more mature than people like myself?
Not to mention the ecological footprint. A whole other person.
It's selfish because you are enjoying life and they are not. At least this is what my friends with kids tell me...
Not to mention resources are dwindling. By not having children you're freeing more up for the children who do and will exist
Or because how impossible is to pay for the cost of having a child and to juggle work and motherhood.
I mean I am childfree because I dont like kids (to noisy).
But having kids is really difficult for our generation. We study really long, have plenty of trouble to get a job, the salaries are so low that its already difficult to pay rent and we work to many hours to be able to raise a kid. I am honestly surprised of how many young people manages to have kids.
Not to mention daycare is often more than some people's yearly wages
Daycare for an infant <6mo old is $3k/mo near me. And I'd only get 6wks paid leave, and 3mos total unpaid leave. That would leave 3mos where I'd make less than minimum wage take-home returning to work-- and I'm very well paid. For many people, $3k/mo is more than their entire monthly pay. It doesn't help that most people rely on their jobs for affordable health insurance, which you can hardly do without with a new baby.
It's daunting to think about. I don't know how people do it.
Don't forget cost of birth alone if you're in the US, which is about $4,500 even with insurance.
The maternal mortality rate is increasing ?? In first-world country America??? Looking at several different statistics, we are by far the most backwards of the developed nations.
My favorite statistic is our incarceration rate.
'Freedom' might be America's most coveted word ever... and yet we lead the world in terms of how many people we have behind bars.
What's worse is that it's NOT an accident in any way.
Freedom, indeed.
Its because weve privatized the prison system. Those companies make more money the more people are locked up. Despicable...
This is one reason to look at each state separately. The USA is too big and disparate too look at these statistics as a whole.
It's still not good news but more diverse.
Good lord, my friends with the "cushy jobs" get 20 days paid leave, but are forced to burn 5 for holidays (no clients). Which jobs give 6 weeks?
6 weeks maternity leave, not 6 weeks vacation annually. Plus hopefully a couple weeks/months unpaid which hopefully (if the pregnancy was planned in advance enough to sign up during open enrollment) would be partially covered by temporary disability insurance :-/
6 weeks maternity leave
Now I'm outraged. I remember we did the baby parenting project for health class in school. The lack of sleep drove me to tears as an 18-year old.
I just went back to work after my six weeks of unpaid maternity leave and it's just as hard as you think it is.
A lot of the time the 6 weeks or 8 weeks for c-section (paid) is through the short term disability. If you want to take more than that through disability, it would be unpaid and a doctor has to write a reason why you should get extended time off (even unpaid) to save your job.
And a lot of places require you exhaust your vacation and sick days before you can take the short-term disability.
Which means if you get 20 days vacation a year, and let's say 10 sick days and you are due in February- you have to take your 30 days first and line up the short term disability to follow.
So great, suddenly you have 12 weeks of leave! Still not enough, but better than 6 weeks or worse, nothing.
But the problem is, when you come back to work in May or so, you have NO MORE sick days for the rest of the year.
No sick days with an infant is like an impossible thing- the first year can be miserable and also filled with no sleep and lots of routine doc visits.
Better hope your partner has been banking all of their sick and vacation days and hasn't taken any time off during the 12 weeks to bond with the kid or help you take care of the kid or yourself.
Our system sucks (for both dads and moms), even in the more generous jobs. It's not a shock more couples are choosing not to have kids.
Makes me grateful to be Canadian, my wife took her full 52 weeks with both of our kids at 55% of her normal salary. Even with that, Canada's birth rate of 1.6 per woman is lower than the USA's 1.8 per woman.
Abortion isn't quite as stigmatized up here, and our poverty is both somewhat lower (but certainly still existent - aboriginal/rural maternal care has serious issues, just like underinsured and sensitive populations in the US also have serious issues) and supplemented by better social programs.
I get 5 weeks, but I live in Europe. The minimum a company is allowed to give here legally is 4 weeks.
There is no law in the US stating a company has to pay you at all for Maternity leave. The only law in place is that a woman CAN take 12 weeks unpaid and not get fired under FMLA. Many many women choose to return to work within a couple of weeks due to not being paid. I have 1 friend who went back to work as a waitress 2-3 days after giving birth. Gee I wonder why women here arent excited about having kids..??
That seems so little to me. Doesnt seem fair in any way and deprimental to the health of the mother and baby.
Here the mother gets 3months and the dad 2 months (half of which can be at the same time as the mother). After that we have paid parental leave for about 5 months which the parents can split among themselves.
After that either parent can choose nursing leave until the child is 3 years old. Your employment is ensured to continue after this leave and you get paid by the country to take care of your child.
Knowing that in many countries you dont get adequate time to take care of your children makes me incredibly sad. I happily pay my enormous taxes to ensure our social system working as intended.
6 weeks plus 8 bank holidays, also in Europe. I feel so lucky that I'm not American.
They mean that they would get 6 weeks paid maternity leave, not that they get 6wk paid/yr as standard.
What the fuck. 20 DAYS maternity?
In the UK you can take up to a year but your earnings decrease over time. You're only entitled to your full salary for the first six weeks, but most employers will cover more than that. The company where I work, for example, will give five months on full pay and the next five on half-pay.
Otherwise, on the statutory six-week minimum, it drifts down towards about £150 a week, which isn't great but serves to hold the fort when combined with another salary or with other benefits/income support in the case of single parents. The total can be split between the parents (handy if you're both the same sex, as my wife and I are). You are legally not allowed to go to work for at least two weeks after giving birth for your own and your baby's safety. Your job status is guaranteed by iron-clad legislation.
This still makes the UK by quite some distance the worst provider of statutory parental leave in Western Europe. There are always campaigns to improve these rights. What the hell is going on in the USA? It's like some sort of off-key conspiracy to drive women out of the workforce. Is that the point? What is the point? Healthy, sane mothers and healthy babies = a 100% good thing for society in every way.
Mine? I have 30 days, bank holidays, plus the week between Christmas and New Year when the place is shut down. I'm in the UK at a University though, and I'v studied for 6 years to do it.
Being in UK is the key factor though. Even shitty jobs requiring minimal education will give you ffew weeks of vacations in UK.
My god. Here in Ireland you get 26 weeks paid maternity, which can be extended as unpaid. You automatically get social welfare during this time, and most companies will still pay you also (but at a reduced rate taking social welfare into account, meaning you end up with the same total amount every month). Majority of women take their full maternity leave, so childcare isn't really an issue until the child is at least 6 months old. Creche here is expensive enough from what I've been told, but there are social supports in place for this also, like one free year of playschool/montessori.
We also have heaps of provisions in place in the event that the baby is early, you have a miscarriage/stillbirth (still get full maternity leave if it occured after week 24), the mother dies etc.
Healthcare, annual leave and maternity leave are three reasons why I would never live and work in the US.
Holy moly. So you have to pay to give birth at a hospital? then you don't really have any maternity/paternity leave unless your boss give it to ya? And then when you get back to work you have to pay $3k to get childcare? I live in a Scandinavian country. We pay our hospital visits through out taxes - including giving birth. And we have a year leave afterwards with 1 month before birth and 2 weeks after birth being obligatory for the womans health. Childcare is about $550 when the child is under 3 years old and $370 if it's between 3-6 years old. This is including lunch, juice, fruit and stuff like that daily. The child beings school at the age of 6 which is paid trough taxes. The average child cost is $470 per month from birth to 18 years old.
Ok, I'm going to give my standard lecture on this. It's not just the short term cost of daycare vs. wages couples should consider when they make this decision. Retirement earnings and keeping skills current should factor into this as well.
I'm a woman and in my 50s. I'm single and childfree. I've seen women give up their careers to raise kids. Then the husband leaves or the relationship becomes intolerable and she needs to leave. Or he dies. Or loses his job.
Many jobs skills are dependent upon technology these days. If you get rusty, it can be really hard to start all over again at entry level at 40 or 50 something.
Granted, sometimes couples can't afford long term thinking. But it is something to keep in mind when making this decision. If you're breaking even to pay day care, you may still be coming out ahead by keeping your skills current and contributing towards a retirement plan.
And this is in no way judging women who stay home to care for children. Women (and men) should have that choice. But it should be an informed choice. So please keep that in mind if you are making this choice.
It is certainly not an easy choice but I am wondering how does a single person on average income pay for childcare and living expenses? Childcare is more than many people's full income as it is. You would have to rely on free or discounted (family) childcare if you are lucky and have some sort of free or cheap roommate situation to even make it work.
It's called poverty.
Yep this, I have several relatives who had to go on welfare after divorces. Nearly all of them went back to get degrees related to careers and found work. And they're now off welfare. But it's usually the mother who ends up bearing the financial and time brunt of child care when she's a single parent.
My brother and his wife divorced, but reconciled. While they were apart, my mother was apparently whining about my brother having to pay for child care while he worked.
My brother and his ex-wife/now partner had 50/50 custody of their kids. They were doing the amicable co-parenting path before they got back together. Each was responsible for childcare during work hours when they had their kids.
They both wanted the children and chose to have them, so it makes sense they'd both be responsible for them in time, money and other resources. My mother seemed to think it was his wife's job. As if my brother didn't have 50 percent of responsibility for those kids.
I'm a single person on a non-average income and I live in a relatively cheap area and it's still a struggle sometimes when unexpected expenses occur.
I have no idea how they do it and I salute them. When I was making less it was near-constant worry and there don't seem to be that many discounted childcare places available for people who need it, and also the line that determines who needs it is so shady. So many people just over the line that don't qualify for help but also can't afford to pay for a decent standard of living without it.
This happened to me. I let my computing skills I was building up fester and become useless while raising my children, and now, my only skill I can use is such a basic skill that I can't believe I've resorted to it. At the same time, I am thinking about expanding that one skill to make me more marketable, but I'm scared I'll fail those tests...
Go for it! If you don't try you will never know.
Same here. Getting to work took ages, nursery opened at 8, shut at 6. Needed 90 minutes to get to work at 9, had to leave at 530. Got judged for not working late. Felt a bit out of the loop. Now I'm a carer for my elderly parent/grandparent. Can't work if I wanted to because they need full time care.
I think the local day cares near me start at 120/day AND if they in any way have a sniffle, cough or temp you have to come get them immediately. Oh and you still get charged the 120 for the day.
The quality of daycare can be a huge problem too, as well as hours that daycares are open. Who can work a night job when daycare is only from 6 am to 6 pm and your shift is from 8pm to 8am? Daycare isn't possible if you're a single parent. Then there's "sick kids" checks. One of my kids did what I did as a child and threw random fevers and vomiting and they wouldn't let the kid back until he went multiple days without a fever. Guess what? That's the sign of an allergy! "Did you feed my kid this this or this?" "Noooo..." "then why is his arse covered in blisters?" "I dunno..." One daycare I sent him to gave me a $200 bill for diapers. I asked them why was there a bill for diapers when I was sending them? "we didn't know you sent them!" They were in his backpack. So was his special non-allergy food diet. "That's not enough food and he was hungry!" ARGH! Of course he's hungry - he would eat everything he could stuff into his face, and still does.
That is ridiculously frustrating even to me, and I don't have kids!
More than most, especially if you're a woman.
I also find it crazy that so many young people still "manage" to have kids. I think there is a lot more struggling behind the scenes than most realise. Lots of debt, stress, and sacrifice in order just to raise even one child. It's probably why so many people reach adulthood with issues, depression, etc; they're raised by unprepared parents who didn't know what they were getting into.
I don't want kids simply because I don't want them. I could list a few more specific reasons, but not wanting children should be enough justification in itself. Parents should really want to have a child, otherwise it's a disservice to the person they're bringing into the world. Why would anyone want reluctant parents? It should be a task taken on with enthusiasm; parenting can't be half-assed.
Yet we're still judged as selfish because we're making an educated and measured decision.
You are completly right.
For example I was raised by an angry and abusive father.I am really not patient with noises and I have a bad temper. I am also sick and depressed so I am more grumpy than ever.
I dont want kids because i dont like them. But also I know that I would be a terrible mother. How is it selfish to be aware that you qould be a bad parent and decide to spare your child a trauma?
Totally not selfish. Self-awareness is a gift too few people have. We're doing the world a favor by NOT bringing more unwanted, neglected, self-hating people into an already overcrowded planet.
You are spot on :)
Same, I know I'd make a terrible mother. This fact was solidified by my coming home exhausted from work, wanting to sit and do nothing, when my 5-year-old nephew screeched my name and ran into my arms and asked me to play with him. I do NOT have the energy to come home to that every day...
Yesterday I was in a lot of pain and feverish (endo plus flu, I had a super fun week). My dog (30kg but a puppy in her head) jumped to me while i was lying down and hit me in the uterus and nose. I started swearing from the pain like a trucker, i scared my partner. Of course my pup didnt mind because she didnt understood but you cant do that to a toddler, it would scare it.
Shoot I don't have the time/energy/interest in that on a good day!
My mom totally tells me that we would "find a way" to "make it work" financially. Um no. I work with low-income families and definitely don't want that struggle, thanks very much. I'll get my fill of kids and babies at work, but I don't need to bring that home.
My mom told me that "you can never afford kids, so why wait to be more financially stable? You still won't be able to afford one, so just have one and you'll figure it out"
And I'm just like ??????????????
Holy gods, I'll never understand why people think that's a healthy environment to raise children in.
Mom: You can't afford to feed more people, you should have a baby!
Us: Feeding everyone is important, so no.
I know right? At my dad's funeral I had several people tell me that I "need to find a nice girl, settle down and have a couple of kids".
Which was frustrating because I was in a terrible situation. No money, a broken down house to fix and no prospects. So why would it make sense to bring kids into the world that I couldn't provide for?
I grew up an only child in a home where we had no money, so there's no way that I'd subject a child to that.
The people telling me this all had several kids that they struggled to raise and spent a lot of time in debt. Makes no sense to me.
Misery loves company
There's a saying where I live - if there's enough for 2, there's enough for 3. It. Doesn't. Make. Any. Sense.
This is the same logic that leads people to having a car they're making 72 $700 payments for when they make $30k/year.
Mom: Life, uh, finds a way.
No, mom, that only works with dinosaurs.
I love my kids but im flat fucking broke all the time Like when people say theyre broke but they still have savings.... No...
Im constantly in the negatives and its ducking hard!
Love them to bits but theres little to no assistance and its hard work
Wife went back to work 3 days a week and we put two of them in child care. We profited 100 bucks a week for all the trouble after childcare fees and petrol etc... its incredibly tough and everything just keeps getting more and more expensive.
We "manage" on my single income for now but its not sustainable at all! Just constantly falling further behind and it causes a lot of distress at times.
We were financially very stable prior to having kids...
That sucks and I'm sorry you're struggling
It is what it is and I'm quite happy, just cant wait to start getting on top of things!
My second is starting school this year so that will give us more time to work out a second job etc.
I guess just saying the struggle is real but it is completely unexpected how hard it is and i completely respect people who dont want to!
I just dont know what else i used to do with my life 6 or so years ago!!! Lol
Yeah totally. So many of my friends who had kids have just disappeared. They don't go out anymore, they don't go on holiday, you rarely hear from them. I went to visit one a few weeks back and both of them looked completely exhausted. It seems really hard.
My older sister has told me she never really wanted kids, but she had 2 with her husband. He was abusive, he spent all his "spare" money on pot instead of optional things like diapers and formula, and she couldn't afford to work and pay for child care. They're divorced, he can't keep a job because of drugs and so doesn't pay child support. He also doesn't pay child support to his previous wife and her two children.
My younger sister is vehemently anti-children. They're sticky, messy, loud, and expensive, and she's not about that life. She likes her free time and being able to just pick up and go on a weekend trip on a whim. She makes a fantastic aunt once they can converse, but has no idea what to do with them before that. I think our dad asked once or twice about her having kids and she was very clear about her choices.
My older sister has no spare money. She has very little free time. She's had to miss work (usually unpaid) to take care of the kids, which puts an extra burden on her coworkers. She can't work in her degree field where she lives, but a commute means after school childcare she can't afford or a move to more expensive area. But she had kids and is therefore a proper, unselfish woman while our younger sister is horribly selfish for not making more people.
Fun times when wages don't rise with inflation for over a decade.
Try 4 decades. It's absurd to expect national fertility to maintain when people are effectively paid less every year for 30-40 years.
There's no visible hope for widespread housing security for millenials. There's no visible indication that millenials will ever have even 30% of the wealth their parents have, thanks to losing it all to debt.
Exactly. Now things are looking better for my country (Spain) because the left won and its changing things (slowly). But before they didnt raised the minimum salary since the apearance of the euro. Until two yeara ago it was legal to pay 600 euros for a full time worker. Now they are raising it to 1000, which is a good step.
The mimimum salary here in Belgium is almost 1600. And yes, Spain is cheaper but not prpportionally to the salaries. Rent in Madrid is as expensive as in Brussels and the electricity and water there are one of the most expensive in europe.
Truth! I just started a fulltime job after uni and it seems that I cannot afford to rent a studio from my salary. Or at least not from a third of it, as it 'the norm'. If I get one, it costs me more than half my salary and I really cannot let a hypothetical partner live their too. Let alone a kid.
My grandfather could support a family of six on a single income. Buy a house and have a car. Yeah, they were not rich, but my grandmother could stay at home and watch the kids. And if she was allowed to work, that means the second salary could have covered childcare while the first already payed for cost of living.
Exactly. My granpa only studied until 18 (his parents wanted him to study medicine but was scared of blood so he quit). He found a good job, rose in the ladder and by the time that my mum was born he could support him, my gran, my mum and had a huge house.
I have two masters and I am learning now my 4th language. I needed to leave Spain because I couldnt find a job even as a cleaning lady...
My case might be an exception because i have been very unlucky this last years. But still, most of my friends are my age (30) or older and cant afford to have kids.
Yup. If they want more women to have children, society needs to do more to make it practical.
Big "if" IMO: do we actually need more children? The population is already too high in many ways (environmental impact, housing, transport) in most countries and the world as a whole. If the population were dropping rapidly, I'd agree there's a need to change that, but with a growing population causing problems, surely we should be reducing the birth rate not raising it?!
Thats a different topic. But yes, I do believe that we should aim to half our population (and reduce ot more in the future). But the taxes system is based on the boomer generation and it needs a growing population. I believe that once our generation replaces the politics we might start going to the right path.
We all need to have loads of kids to support an aging population, apprently. So there's the last 'fuck you' from the You've Never Had It So Good™ generation: we've made a total hash of everything, sorry about that, now reproduce to pay for our retirement too okay thanks.
The worldwide birth rate is peaking and will probably fall off within the next couple of decades. For example India's in 1970 was about 6 and is now 2.5... which is what the UK's was in 1970. And so on. The idea of some megacity-powered overpopulation sci-fi nightmare is probably the one sort of dystopia we don't have to worry about. The worldwide rate of natural increase is falling hard.
It's going to be awful - really, really awful - but it seems like the sort of problem that will right itself within a couple of generations by definition. So there's that.
Reducing population may be worthwhile, but it has to be done carefully. A major drop in birthrate leads to situations like Japan, where soon a large portion of the population will be elderly putting stress on the later generations.
As far as population control goes, the biggest concern right now is facilitating the demographic transition of developing countries.
And there's already 10 gajillion people. When I see huge families....I just think how irresponsible that is. To everyone else.
True. Specially if they dont have a big income. Kids arent toys, you need to be responsible and think if you can afford them. Of course, now that we have very cheap contraception (condoms are very cheap).
we work to many hours to be able to raise a kid.
That way you're not even raising a kid imo. You see it for all of an hour a day between work and sleep. You just have a kid and someone else is doing the raising.
Exactly. I dont like being a stay at home parent (to much financial preasure goes to the other parent and creates unequal relations) but you vant raise kids and work from 8 to 6. At minimum we should be able to work half time. Lets say if both parents work half time it should equal the financial situation of before when the mum didnt work.
Half time would be ideal ! But then employers provide 0 benefits to either parent in many cases, so you lack access to dental, prescription, eyeglasses... (Before someone comments about Americans lack of free health care: I'm Canadian. We have free health care for Doctors, but little else. I can get prescribed something for free but unless one of us works full time and has benefits - it can be costly medication).
Here in Europe your health insurance tends to come from the goverment not work so i guess that its different :)
In a lot of ways we are closer to the situation in South Korea or Japan than society might like to admit.
I dont know, how is the situation there?
It's a hellhole for people who want to find and maintain a relationship. It's more than a bit Orientalist because every country has a foot in the past and traditions with the other in a modern society but SK & Japan both have very traditional cultures with very strong social expectations and definitions of success, which means that expectations are very high and really don't reflect the reality of the modern world and those countries.
Idk if you've heard of "Hikkikomori" or the Japanese phenomenon of how adolescent Japanese men who are on the cusp of entering adult life just shut themselves away in their rooms, often without seeing or communicating with anyone, and this can go on for years. In a very large part this is because Japanese men are expected to be the sole breadwinner and to work their way up the corporate ladder and then once they have achieved a high level of success they should get married, have kids and so on... but Japanese work culture is kinda monstrous and an absolute meatgrinder. So in Japan you have these single people who spend virtually all day at work (and commuting) and they get home to eat and sleep a few hours before returning to the grind.
This leaves generations of Japanese people growing up into adulthood having never had a serious relationship due to ridiculous time pressure, and the thought of even trying to find a regular couple of hours to pursue dating is pretty much impossible (and even if you did, it's not like many other people are on the market because they are far too busy themselves) not to mention the time it takes to build and maintain a healthy relationship - it's literally just too hard for a huge swathe of the population.
Then once these singles hit 25-30, they are so late in the game on romantic relationships that it's just insurmountable to develop the skills necessary so lots and lots of Japanese people just don't even see it as being on the cards.
I am much less familiar with South Korea but by all reports their situation is even worse, with a lower birth rate and staggering workplace expectations.
It's a fascinating topic but it's very grim and if anything screams "late capitalism" to me, it's this phenomenon. Obviously things are different in the US and other countries but this trend of not having children because it's not even on the cards due to lack of time or the economic circumstances is very reminiscent of what's going on over there to a much greater degree and I have to say that this is the exact direction we are heading. (Or would be, if the climate wasn't going to bite us in the ass.)
I guarantee you that there would be dozens of short documentaries on the work cultures of Japan and SK, and on the causes of their extremely low birth rates. Sorry if I rambled.
Not to mention there's already enough stress from worry without factoring in that you have a child to take care of.
Yeah economics plays a big role. Our society is not geared to having kids unless you're rich and don't need to work. We have a crap safety net that does not support college very well, daycare, and healthcare for everyone. I'm middle class but I work in tech and have no life and my fiancé works a lot to. How the hell are we going to make time for kids? We talked about me being a part time stay at home husband (I would be a real estate agent) but hope to god we have enough.
Yup, happily not having kids and definitely rocking my marriage. I work in a school and that has only solidified my stance on not having kids.
I'm already a self-bashing perfectionist, why on Earth would I want to make myself, my husband, AND a child miserable because I can't be a perfect mom?
Just one of several dozen reasons for not having kids, and IT'S TOTALLY VALID.
Ladies of you love your life as is, don't have kids unless you 1000% want one and there is no lingering doubt that you want the mom lifestyle.
I also work in a school. Nothing makes you want kids less than spending ALL day with multiple kids asking you a million questions and making you repeat yourself. I got married last year, and it is incredibly frustrating how often I'm asked "when are you having kids?" Never. My answer is always the same - so is their shock.
I was a teacher and it just reinforced my desire to have kids. Not that they weren't obnoxious idiots 30% of the time but 20% of the time they filled me with joy. That other 50% they were mildly amusing or exasperating or caring or insightful. Same applied to my students and to my own children.
The way I've always thought about it privately is "I have 100+ kids a year. I don't have anything more in me to give." I've never wanted kids of my own, and the narrative always forced on me was that I would change my mind. This was really reiterated when I started training to be a teacher. I think that's really what I meant by my original comment - working with kids didn't change my mind. I love them, I appreciate them, and I still don't want to raise my own.
Exactly! I love the kids I do work with to pieces. That doesn't mean I want to come home and give even more of myself to other human beings. I have needs and limits too, and deserve to respect myself enough to honor them.
And to be clear, I'm not suggesting anyone who doesn't want kids should have them. Nor would I ever say you'll change your mind. I have known people who do and I have known people who don't and it's not my place to try and change their decision.
I had a teacher who was childfree and whenever she was asked she would respond with," I do have kids, 40 of them to be exact." I loved her response, she was an amazing teacher.
The kids at the library ask me all the time why I don't have any. I just tell them they're all my kids.
I'm childfree, so that about as close to "my kids" as anyone is ever going to be.
It's actually shocking that people get so shocked. Like, what are you so shocked about?
No, I do not want to completely alter my life so I can take care of this little person, filling my existence with anxiety and uncertainty over how things will go for me or that kid. Not to mention - and I say this as a parent that loves his daughter - the insane amount of upheaval that just naturally accompanies a small child.
I wanted to be a dad, but I recognize it's a HARD as hell job, and it's completely okay to not want kids. Stupid to think otherwise.
Same here. I teach adolescents and I'm already dreading it when our own kids reach that age
You don't need to live the "mom lifestyle". You do, admittedly, have to deal with judgemental assholes who expect you to, but you it's not actually a requirement to mom out to full handmade-linen-teepee-playhouse standards. Turns out, children have been growing up in a range of different environments for quite some time!
I've always said I want kids but recently I've changed my mind, I'm only 22and my fiancé is 23 but he also feels the same I would imagine that we will be happy either way.
We like our holidays, spontaneous days out and I really want to focus on my career.
This right here! I am tired of being shamed for not wanting to continue the mental abuse that occurred from my divorced mom that made me a perfectionist. But no - my mother regularly see a potential grandchild as a "do over" baby. My worth is nothing until I have this "do over" grandchild because my mom wants to try be a better grandma. But there is no way I'm going to drop my mental health do try and live up to mom standards & hold my job.
Plus f - my family history is full of horrible genetic diseases that I am unwilling to put a child through. We have both long QT heart failure for males so I lost my brother in teen hood & have no male relatives on the one side. Then the other all have some sort of neurological issue from migraines, seizures, autism, ALS, Parkinson's. So no - I don't want to have kids because this right here is enough to show my genetics are flawed. Irresponsible to imagine giving that gift to a child.
I find it so ridiculous how I can't have my own opinion on what's right for me. That my marriage isn't built off group decisions (my husband also does not want babies). And it's all my fault that my genetics and my mental health illness are crap that I will not pass on into society.
Why is this even a debate - no is an answer. No is a sentence. I do not need to explain these things to fing Karen at work who seems to think it's just age that's my problem... not that I've had this stance from childhood & I found a partner who also wants to be child free.
But yeah - I'm the A hole for not wanting children vs random people who have no right telling me how to live my life.
Obligatory "I love my kids to the moon" But motherhood has been such a struggle. I'm working full time and full time home manager, family coordinator, birthday rememberer, supply itemizer . I'm overwhelmed, in debt, have no family to help support.
I look back and wish I had slowed down to think things through more carefully. Sometimes I resent the life I've made for myself.
I certainly don't expect my own children to make the same choices I did when that time comes. Assuming WW3 doesn't end it all first.
Don't worry, if WW3 doesn't, global warming will.
You are me.
You aren't alone.
When it becomes a trend people need to stop making accusations against the individual and start analyzing the environment that is causing it.
Does anyone else feel like they don't know what their own decision really is with all the influencing factors? I struggle with this all the time.
I get anxious because I feel like I don't know what I would choose if I was actually just left alone without pressure to decide.
Two women who have been role models in my life both said things that haunt me:
1) "Sometimes I wish I never had kids. We used to go to gigs and have fun, we just can't do that anymore." Her financial situation and marriage were on the rocks at the time, it was in the fallout from the 2008 crash. She tried to get pregnant for years, IVF and all, before they had two kids and yet she still felt this way.
2) "Why would you want someone who cannot do anything for themselves, even feed themselves for years?" Emphasizing that you have to do absolutely everything for them and I could sense she resented that. She has 3 kids.
I'm scared I'm going to regret having kids like those women, and it plays on my mind all the time. My husband is absolutely certain he wants a family so I sort of feel like I've made my bed with that one, only adding to the feeling that I don't really have a choice. His parents told me I'll suddenly know when I turn 30, that's this year! Could do with that sudden clarity coming right about now.
I've also seen people in my family who we thought would be great fathers and then they turned out to be useless, god that terrifies me. What if I or my husband don't live up to each other's expectations, it can completely change how you see each other.
Sorry for such a long rant, it's a representation of the spiraling going on in my head I guess 🤷🏻♀.
I really don't think I'm living up to my partner's expectations right now of being a mum. When I bring up the fact I'm struggling with being a good mum, he mentions that I should try to find ways to improve, which really doesn't help when sleep deprivation has significantly affected my cognition skills.
If you want to go through my post history, I commented on a thread about 2 days ago as to why I don't think it would be right to bring another child into the world (parenting struggles aside). I don't know if it would help you decide as it is a more objective, non parenting viewpoint?
There was a Redditor who made some long and detailed posts about regretting having a child for his wife's sake in order to help other people in a similar situation- I'll see if I can find his name for you.
Edit: it was u/PookiePi
Just throwing this out there, your partner is fucking garbage for responding that way to you confiding in your struggle.
I know it is completely the wrong response to give me, but it isn't meant in a horrible way. I think it might be that he doesn't know what the exact problem is, so I need to figure out it myself. I love him very much (and I've kept him for 11 years this week), but he can be so dense at times, and I think this might be one of them. My mum says I'm doing a great job despite the ridiculous sleeping, so I'm going to focus on that instead.
Does he help you with the child?
I'm 34, single, and childless. Oddly, the older I get the less I think I want kids. Aren't I supposed to be freaking out about my biological clock ticking?
I've been on my own for so long...having lived without roommates for 7 years now. I'm so used to being able to just do whatever when I get home from work and be lazy. Like the massive amount of time and responsibility involved in raising a child would feel like a ginormous adjustment. I'm content with just me and my dog.
If I did have kids it would be just one. I do kind of wish I could have the kind of close relationship I have with my mom with a child of my own. But that's actually a selfish reason.
When I was in my 20s I thought I'd like to have kids at some point. I quite enjoy their company and have a way with them. Hit my 30s and still wasn't financially stable so started to panic a bit. Biological click went into overdrive. My other half was luke warm about having kids to say the least. He had a miserable childhood and still has issues as a result. We talked about the possibility of having kids at length. Me arguing for, and him against. In the end we kinda convinced each other of the opposite stance. So now I don't want kids at all and he has warmed to the idea of parenting! We have settled on not having children partly because of the state of the world but also because we now have a niece and nephews who fulfill the nurturing desire we have. We are really attentive to them and spend proper quality time with them but have freedom to pursue our own lives and ambitions. Our roles as aunt and uncle are appreciated by the kids parents. And the kids adore us which is lovely. My niece did ask me if we were ever going to have kids because she'd love to have a girl cousin but I told her I didn't need to have kids myself because I loved her so much.
This is how I feel with my boyfriend. I thinkg it's going be a very similar scenario. Neither of us really want kids, although he is pretty much completely against it. I'd rather be an awesome aunt and possibly godmother to 1-2 kids than have my own. I also think if more people felt that way and a child would have more people looking after them besides their parents, they would all turn out much more well rounded.
But of course I totally understand if someone wants their own child. It's just I don't and I think my future niece/nephew/godchild will benefit from that. Thank god I have a brother who definitely wants kids
I feel that.
In my teens I always assumed I'd have kids and day dreamed about future-family.
In my early twenties I was constantly fighting the urge to make a baby with logic and my economic reality.
After 27 or so I was comfortable with my life as it was and my husband wasn't into the idea so I wasn't against waiting until 30 to reproduce so we could travel and enjoy each other.
Now at 31 the idea of pregnancy and an infant is somewhere between tiring/unpleasant and scary/nauseating.
I think at this point we won't have any children and my husband is more than happy to have convinced me.
I relate to this 100% -35, cats and a long term (going on 3yrs) bf in another city about an hour away, haven't lived with anyone for about 9 years.
I did some serious thinking about a year into the relationship, I thought this was it -I have the other half of the genetic material now, so we should get to it and make a baby, right?
Turns out I don't really want to. It would be nice to pass on all my hard earned knowledge onto someone and saving them some struggle, but it would be years until that person can absorb coherent thoughts and there are countless ways to mess them up in the meantime.
And then you're still stuck with another person forever.
Plus I'm not really willing to sacrifice my whole life and all the comforts and freedom to do whatever I want. Having cats is limiting enough and they are pretty low maintenance compared to a child.
edit: forgot to mention the bf is fully on board with all of the above -lucky for him
I thought you had 35 cats!
I have been asking my gyno to fix me since I was 20. She always says no because I might want kids some day. Other people also told me I'd want kids someday when I told them I did not want kids. I was always like what's the magic number you think that will happen at? I'm 39 now. My doc finally said we could discuss it this year.
My logical conscious brain is painfully aware of the biological clock... but the rest of me I just can't even fathom feeling like a full 180 almost. You know, I think being on my own right now is fine, I can sort of passively sit here and not be in a position to have kids or think about it almost, time will just pass by until the point of no return.
I think i'd be wrestling with it more if there was someone else putting pressure on it (partner) maybe. Maybe you are just enjoying yourself! Dogs take plenty of time :p
You have a choice. You might have to break up with your husband, but you have a choice. You need to sit down and really figure out if you want kids. Not because of what your husband, your family, your biology, or society thinks or expects. You need to objectively look whether you want to birth and raise children or not. Because while society has seen advancement in division of labor, women still bear the brunt of childcare. So make lists, flowcharts, research, really dig deep if you want children or not.
Yes definitely this, you have a choice, it's just a hard one. Remember, as the woman, you would also be taking the risk and hardship of pregnancy and post-natal life.
Maybe talk with someone independent/objective, like a therapist?
It's definitely not an all-or-nothing choice, either. Volunteer with kids, foster kids, help at a daycare, do stuff like that. Decide if that's something you want by actually experiencing what it is. And by that point, you may decide to adopt or just keep volunteering your time with them instead of making even more kids in the world.
It's hard to know yourself, and it's hard to make a decision where you know that you may have regrets if you do or don't chose something. It's much nicer to have clarity, but these days not everyone is so fortunate. I know others that have been in your shoes- don't beat yourself up. And turning 30 (or any age) isn't a panacea for all life's confusion, so set that nonsense aside.
Sit with yourself, and allow yourself days where you decide that yes, you are having kids and see how it feels. Do the same thinking about not having them. Mull over it, be patient, see what it tells you. Check your life and past experiences and think about what that means to the apprehension you are experiencing about having, or not having, children. Are past experiences blocking clarity in your choice?
The world has always had its issues, but don't let the doomsday mentality block you from living your life, or bringing life into this world if you want. The next generation may be the one that saves us from ourselves. Have faith, and good luck!
Try not to get bogged down with what others say. Take a step back and think about what you really want.
When I was in my early to mid-twenties I absolutely could not imagine ever wanting to have kids. Now I'm pregnant at 32 and while I know the next few years won't be easy, I'm excited about what's to come. There was no sudden epiphany about it. Over time my mind just slowly changed. It is a huge commitment though, so if you're not sure don't start trying 'just because'.
Ironically, I feel more pressured and judged by coworkers and friends who have chosen to stay childless than I did when I got the odd questions about when my husband and I were planning to start a family. The decision whether or not to have kids is something that is intensely personal, yet people on both sides seem to think its completely appropriate to push their views on others. It's natural to feel stressed by that, and you're definitely not alone in feeling that way.
I would actually like kids. But I'm single, already mid-thirties, and while I can afford my lifestyle I'm pretty skint.
Plus seeing how, of my friends who have kids, only one of the men turned out to be a decent father, I'm not sure if I'd want to risk it.
If it helps at all, I have 3 children and have had feelings of regret on occasion with all of them despite loving them all deeply. It doesnt mean I overall regret or resent having children.
Here's the thing,,, unless you are absolutely 100% sure you want kids, don't have them. And there's no deadline as such,, if you change your mind, you can still have kids 5/10 years later. A study found that a lot of older mothers had better pregnancies and were more mature/less anxious. Try dropping by few subs, it might convince you.
Also, you don't have to have kids just because of your husband....
Whatever you decide just make sure you know EVERYTHING, the pros the cons and the stuff people don't tell you. Dw, you still have time to decide :)
I'm not having kids because I just don't want them!
Right??? It still amazes me that it's 2020 and we're still asked to justify our every action. "why? what if your husband wants to have kids? Who's gonna take care of you when you're older? but why?" Because I don't fucking want to, Karen. I don't have to justify myself to you. If I regret it later, that's on me, what does it matter to you? Stop pestering me jfc.
On the flip side we are so lucky to be in a time where people have realised this. I grew up stressing about having kids one day, I never wanted them but always thought it was something you had to do. I'm so thankful being child free is more open and talked about now, otherwise I may never have realised I didn't have to have kids.
I'm the first generation in my family where women had a choice to have kids. It just wasn't a question for the generations before. My sister has two beautiful girls and I'm kid free. So happy for her, so happy for me.
I could have written those lines. It was such a relief when I understood you have a choice and don't have to have kids.
Can you imagine the reaction if someone told you they wanted kids and you asked why?
CPS worker. I would generally consider the person who chooses not to have children to be selfless, regardless of the reason why. The whole quote here just irks me. How is a person choosing not to take on a lifelong responsibility immature, or shallow? You know what is shallow and immature? Having multiple children despite each previous child ending up in the care of relatives, friends, or foster parents. I've lost track of how many times I've talked to a mother at the hospital and heard "I'm happy to have this new baby so I can do it right this time" in reference to losing parental rights after neglecting or abusing their previous children. I have to, and do, believe that everyone can change and improve, and I'll do the best I can to connect people with services to help them be safe and appropriate parents. But DAMN do I hate that line, because it very rarely seems to translate into any meaningful changes.
The whole perspective on parenthood as a right and expectation seems backwards to me. Parenthood is a service (albeit a rewarding one) to children, not the other way around.
There are so many bad reasons to have children and I encounter them every day in my work. I'm sure that at least partially influences my overall perspective, but god damn would it be refreshing to hear "I think I would make a terrible parent, I dont have the patience for it."
-edit- Thank you for the award. I love my job and I've learned a lot from the people I work with and the families I interact with every day. Most people I meet tend to be doing alright or at most need a nudge in the right direction.
Ex foster kid here. Thank you for what you do. One of the best days of my life was the day the Kind CPS worker. took me away from my parents house. I will never forget how kind her voice was.
I'm glad you were able to get the help you needed to get away from your situation, and thank you for the reminder that even little things I do in working with children can be important. I strive to remain kind above all else with my families and I'm grateful somebody was able to be kind for you.
I'm sorry you have to see that, but I agree. We need to make it clear to folks that it's okay if you don't want children. But wanting is even different than being capable of taking care of them financially, mentally, and emotionally. Too many people get caught in a situation where a child comes and the parents are slapped hard across the face when reality shows up. Kids are a very big deal and too little people realize this until it's too late.
I have a 2 month old and let me tell you it is wildly different than what my expectations were during pregnancy. I love him with all my heart and I would do it again for him in a heartbeat but the first month was literally hell until he decided to kind of have a little daily routine. It is so much harder than I imagined it would be.
So even if you are in a good situation and people tell you what to expect there is absolutely no amount of preparing that will prevent you from the reality slap of having a kid.
Yo ive bever had kids but i appreciate this comment. Just cause you have the biological ability to have kids doesnt mean you should. It makes no sense. There are way more reasons to not have a kid than to have one. I used to think 'what self respecting man wouldn't want to raise a child' but now the waters are muddied.
SHOULD I raise a child in the situation we are in now?
I will never forget overhearing my neglectful mom on the phone saying she felt like she made a mistake in making her kids the priority, and how she was going to focus on herself from then on. One kid was too many, let alone eight
I don't understand why so many people care. If you wanna have kids, great! If you don't that's great too. The world would be better off with fewer people. Some people should mind their own business.
I think it comes down to two things: On the one hand they want you to have kids so they have someone else that can relate to them and share their situation.
On the other hand it's been pounded into their heads since childhood that you need to get married and have kids.
Also some old cultural remnants that see women are property with a function instead of independent thinking individuals.
100% this, idk why so many people care about the lives of other people and their own decisions. I'm nearing my late 20s and the amount of people that ask me about getting married or having kids is beyond irritating.
Some people want to control others. Conservatives have long used birth as a way of keeping women poor and at home.
A lot of people feel that having kids is something you're supposed to do and get shocked when they realize that it's just an option. A lot of the angry/surprised reactions are from people who secretly regret having kids and are resentful of people who continue to live their lives without them. Or they had kids in order to feel they had a purpose in their lives, and are surprised to find out there are people that create a purpose without children. It really reflects on themselves when they react badly to a childfree person.
I don't mind being called selfish for not having kids - there is nothing wrong with being selfish if it isn't harming someone else, and me not having kids doesn't harm anyone at all. I need to put myself first and I know that motherhood would destroy me. I also know I couldn't afford it, even with working in tech and being married to someone who is also working in tech. The cost of daycare is extraordinary here.
What I CANNOT STAND is the people who tell me that I can't possibly know what true love is if I haven't had a child. Fuck off. Anytime someone tells me that, I tell them that I am sorry their romantic and platonic relationships have been so mediocre that they needed to go create a whole new life just to feel true love. Funny enough, they don't respond well to that, but somehow expect me to swallow what they said first.
I have two children and I love my husband just as much as my children. The love is the same.
It's possibly true that our body will dose you with more serotonin and other feel goods in response to your own child, than most other relationships. But who cares. Take a bunch of heroin or ecstasy and you'll feel the same thing.
That's the part that gets me the most. So they had to create a new living human, essentially hold it hostage during the most tender years of its life, just so they could feel real love? Really? Are they sure that's what that is?
I don't want kids because I don't want them to suffer. I would never want anything less than the best for my children. Why is it praiseworthy to pump out kids without being completely prepared to raise them in a stable and healthy environment?
Seriously. The world is on fire, the climate is going absolutely nuts, we're just now deciding that disposable products that take hundreds of years to decay might be a bad idea, thousands of species are going to be extinct just because of climate change...
And someone wants me to bring a kid into this world? All because I'm expected to? Because it'd be fun? Fuck that. Fuck anyone who thinks that.
Honestly this is, for me at least, the biggest reason why I wouldn't want to bring another human into the world. We are way too many, and the world is suffering from us. Like C'mon! Why would I want to bring someone to life just to be worrying over this kind of things?. Under that reasoning I think it's more selfish to have children than not to.
That is my exact fear too! I love children, always have. But I'm sincerely OVERWHELMED with life and handling resources just for myself, let alone another wee thing...
I agree with this. I struggled with the idea of having kids or not for years because I myself grew up in instability and never wanted that for kids.
It's only now that I'm married (to a man I've been with for over a decade), have a great career with good salary, and we've owned our home for 4 years (in a safe, family friendly area) that I feel ready. We have savings set aside to afford baby things and maternity leave. We finally started trying to conceive, and I'm now pretty newly pregnant! It's a big deal but I feel like I'm the most prepared I possibly could be, which is so reassuring.
I would probably be a nervous wreck if I was trying to do this while underprepared / living precariously myself.
I love my unborn kids so much that I would never let them be born in this piece of shit world.
I absolutely want a child, but I so am going to adopt.
Thank you!!! Childfree people often hear "it's different when it's your own" meaning that people automatically love and properly care for their own genetic children. That's completely false, if it was reality no child would ever be neglected, abused, or abandoned.
I'm so grateful for people like you who want to raise other people with everything it entails and don't insist that it has to be related to you genetically. More people need to want to be parents in that sense.
"it's different when it's your own"
I always hear this from people who have never fostered or adopted kids. Funny how that works. It's almost like they're justifying their choices.
I was the gestational parent for one of my two kids. While pregnancy and childbirth are experiences I treasure, what makes the experience of parenthood unique is the nitty gritty of watching them grow and change by tiny incremental steps day to day and moment by moment that other people aren't there to see, and being there to help them through it and worrying about how not to fuck it up.
Adoptive kids ARE your own. Step kids, if circumstances allow you to really be there, ARE your own.
So I'll say it IS different when they're your own, and it's a profound and meaningful experience when you're engaged and you made the choice to do it.
It's not the only profound and meaningful experience that requires personal experience to really comprehend and to appreciate it you have to WANT to be doing it.
If you don't want it, then that is a valid choice. People need to let others find their purpose without trying to force theirs on others.
Exactly. Kids aren't "your own" just because you gave birth to them or because they share your DNA. They're "your own" because you made them your own by being there for them and looking after them through all their tough times and growth. So the people denouncing adoption and fostering because they're not "your own" just really seem to miss the point of raising kids. When you raise kids, love them, and care for them, they're your own kids. That's that.
"It's different when it's your own" is such BS, especially if you have a history of disabilities, mental illness, etc. in your family. Your own child may end up being so much worse than a child you've adopted who does not have these problems. I look into my family tree, full of abusers and narcissists and I definitely wouldn't want to raise anyone with a chance of turning out like that, not to mention I wouldn't want them around my family - the only family they'd have is me and possibly my partner, but even that's not guaranteed.
It really is different when it's your own because it definitely is a unique experience raising a kid compared to being around kids in other capacities, but an adopted child IS your own.
More importantly, different doesn't mean inherently better for you. Lots of things are difficult or impossible to really convey without personally experiencing them.
Parenthood happens to be one that can be very rewarding, but it's not the only rewarding or profound experience that a person must go through to truly comprehend. It just happens to be a common one so there's a lot more people putting on shitty pressure that they shouldn't.
thank you for giving a child a home
Thank you! Way better for the environment!
Im thinking about this sometimes. But I don't know if how i'll manage a child that from the beginning suffered from a trauma of being separated from his family. I mean sure, he's gaining a new one in the process, but first years of life are so so precious and fragile. Knowing this, idk if I could handle this situation
That's a hard road
Yeah, people put this phrase out the, myself included, without realizing how hard it is. I started having serious discussions with people who have adopted, people who have been adopted and their siblings, and a therapist that both adopted a child and worked her whole career with abused children.
The reality is that you are most likely not getting an infant or child under 2, which is what everyone "wants". Additionally, these kids are coming from broken families or mothers that often abused drugs or alcohol in pregnancy. The patterns and behaviors set up in a kid in the first few years have life long impacts. The impacts of drugs and alcohol in pregnancy create life long challenges with behavior and learning. After talking with my therapist friend, I have huge doubts about adopting.
I don't think the challenge is insurmountable, I just think most people are naive about the consequences and think it is a simple solution to not having biological children.
And some people know that, but the road to biological children is harder for them. My best friend has a PhD in family law. I helped her do research for her thesis where she compared adoption procedures in her country and mine. I know it's hard, but many kids need a home. I don't want to give birth,, even if I could.
My mother doesn't get it. She claims I couldn't love kids I didn't give birth to. I hope my father still loves me. I love my niece. And I want to love some kid who needs a mother.
I definitely think you can love children regardless of how you got them. There are certainly people like yourself that have an idea of what adoption means and have done the research. I knew adoption in the US is time consuming and expensive but I can count myself as one of the people that was naive about the process and problems that arrive after the adoption takes place. Love isn't the only thing needed to make a family work.
But why do we consider people who want to adopt naive? I've never heard anyone say to someone who wants to give birth that they're naive, even though pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing are super hard.
I would argue that most people are also naive about all that goes into having biological children.
However, I think it comes down to exposure. No one in my family has adopted anyone or been a part of that process, where as many of them have had and raised their own children. Most people I have talked to about adopting speak about it in an idealized sense of having a child with no social, emotional, or behavioral issues. The children that are available for adoption have an increased probability of having social, emotional, and behavioral issues because of their circumstances. Whether we like it or not, adopting comes with its own set of challenges that are different than having biological children.
It's not like bio kids can't have challenges, though.
I guess what bothers me is that if I were to say I wanted to get pregnant and give birth, 99.9% of the people I talked to would be like "go for it" or at most shrug, but the second you say you want to adopt, suddenly you don't know what you're doing?
Because many people go into adoption with an idealized version of how it should go (many biological parents do so as well) or go into it with a savior complex. There are/can be pros to adoption, but there are also cons and many people ignore those.
Am I against adoption? No. I'm glad my adoptive parents adopted me and that I went into a good home. I'm for people being educated about pros and cons, and not getting mad when people, especially on r/adoption, call someone out for a toxic mentality towards adoption.
For the first time in history, women are realizing they can do other things with their lives. The birth rate by country is correlated with women's rights... the less options they have, the more babies. The more options, the less babies.
Women can get paid a nice wage now, line their pockets and sleep well at night. Meanwhile, having children is more than a full time job that not only doesn't pay, but costs crippling amounts of money. Generally, the 'mother' narrative doesn't fly for many people with all these better options on the table.
There will probably come a time where women will be paid in some form to raise their children. It's going to take a lot of political upheaval which will entail many people realizing that babies are required as future workers and they've, up until that point, been used to getting them for free and have completely taken them for granted. (Also that, yes, it is indeed a full time job to be a mother and diapers aren't free)
When I realized that I didn't have to have children - that I could choose to be child free- it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. The expectations (especially in a small town) for women to be this super mom is so pervasive and damaging. Children impact every aspect of your life as a woman. From your body to your career to your mental health and everything in between. I will be the best aunt ever and that's ok with me and most of my family.
Same! I never really wanted kids but it just seemed like an inevitable step everyone had to take.
I was dreading it, and kept thinking of all the things I wanted to do before I had them. Then, finally, something clicked and I realized "I could just....not do it."
I probably sound like an idiot for taking so long to realize that, but growing up in a small town really does solidify it in your head as just something everyone does eventually.
This, right here. This is it. If, as a mom, I continued making my current six figure salary for the first five years with a guaranteed similar position afterwards and great free public schools and colleges, I would be tempted to have a kid. THAT is the economic opportunity cost for me and my partner. It's too damn high. That's a million in lost salary, plus 35 years of compound interest not investing it for retirement, plus a career hit that would permanently set me back, on top of 22 years of spending for a complete dependent - and that's the BEST case, if the child is decently intelligent and capable and motivated. How could I possibly? I'm literally being paid millions NOT to give birth.
I'm a dude and even I can't understand why women would want to have kids. With all the news about compromised education, rising costs of living, healthcare, climate change, etc. how can any sane women want to take this challenge?
Ah, you hit most of all my reasons to not have kids.
Same + I'm super anxious about birth/what if my child dies, disappeared, or is disabled... and over population. We are 7 billions! This is insane. We need to slow down.
Ok, here's a thought. Just a thought. If we want more children around how about we
1 Give actual parental leave for both sexes
2 work on ending the false choice of Having to either be a parent or have a career.
3 Not send people to the poor house in the process of raising families. Looking at you college, Healthcare, lack of day care options...
Depends where you are coming from I guess. In Europe (almost?) all countries have parental leave for both sexes. In my country- the leave can take until the child turns 2 years, where mother and father can alternate the leave. It is also paid. (Different models for different duration). Before the parental leave (after birth) there is a special leave for the mother that begins about 8 weeks before the foreseen birth.
In the time since the pregnancy has been announced until 4 weeks after the parental leave is done they can not fire you.
For each child government gives parents some money on a monthly basis.
The parents can request a 6 hour work schedule (instead of the "normal" 8) until the kids 6th (I believe) year.
The healthcare is more or less "free" (every employer pays for basic insurance for their workers) and every one can pay extra insurance for themselves but it is not necessary as without it the care is still sufficient and it is not needed to pay extra for almost all procedures.
Whenever I hear about horrid conditions of having children in America I wonder how people manage. Re-spect.
I saw a receipt of an American hospital for placing a newborn child on mothers chest after it was born. Charging for holding your own baby. Crazyyyy.
Raising a family, and maintaining your sanity requires financial stability, plenty of free time, not being exhausted and stressed out from work all the time, having a decent&healthy livong space etc. Under late stage capitalism, a tiny percentage of the population has access to these basic conditions and raising kids becomes a superhuman effort for many families.
Society makes it so much more difficult to be a parent than it has to be and then loses its goddamn mind when people stop having kids.
I know humans are notorious for making a mess and then complaining about having to sleep in it but COME ON!
Holding us down and beating the shit out of us whilst complaining about getting blood on the carpet is what psychos do.
But why would rich people bother paying for that when they can just ship in more immigrants for an instant work force? Why think about the long term future of society when you can make more money in the short term. It will be a full18 years till a kid born now is ready to be saddled with debt and made into a wage slave, that's to long to wait for a capitalist, better to squeeze every last penny out of young people now.
You are so right; the financial and time burden is a big issue for many. I know quite a few people who would be great parents, but finances hold them back from having children. I have members of my biological family that had kids when they were 18-20 not caring that their finances weren't right; you can probably guess how good their parenting is from that alone.
How about the fact that the world is collapsing and nothing will be done about climate change before it's too late combined with too many people consuming too many resources. We're not going to have a better future than the past, forever.
Edit: reality sucks I get it.
Sadly, this is exactly how I feel. I would LOVE to be a mother, I've always wanted to have children. But the future looks... grim. I don't want to bring more humans into the world, just for them to suffer due to the mistakes of earlier generations. It just makes me sad to think about.
You can definitely adopt. Lots of kids need people who are willing to raise and love and care for them. They're already here with us in this climate crisis, you can help make their lives better by being a mom.
Unfortunately, in some countries (like Australia) adopting is really, really, REALLY hard.
Definitely true! Fostering is an option (and Australia needs more foster carers). A lot of those kids need a long term/permanent home.
We got lucky with my brother. Fostered from 10 months old, and gained permanent custody when he was 5 years old (he's now 16).
But then you run the risk of getting too attached to a child, only to have them return to their biological family. Plus, many of the kids have faced significant trauma, and providing them a loving and supportive home is difficult.
This is 100% my thought, how about we fucking concentrate on saving the most beautiful womb of all, this planet. Cause if not it's gonna shit us all out, DOESNT matter how much procreation is going on
I came solely to find this comment because this is the top reason.
The next generation is fucked.
Also, who the hell can afford to have kids today? Everyone I know can barely survive just supporting themselves. And God help you if your child is born with any kind of health complications.
That's the thing. A lot of young families are influencer families. They had the money to begin with. People see that and think that's normal. The rest of us get looked down upon for being failures when the reality is so different.
Boomers destroy the economy.
People stop having kids.
Boomers: :o
"Motherhood is the most exhausting, expensive, and horrible thing you could possibly do! Wait, you don't want to have kids!? That's just selfish! Trust me, you'll love it! It's the most amazing thing you can possibly do!"
Also can we talk about why women who want epidurals are seen as selfish too? The attitude is so confusing to me. You don't want a painful birth for your child? Selfish bitch.
My brother in law to me: man having kids is so hard, no breaks, she cries all the time, it affects my marriage
My brother in law on social media: omg she's my perfect world 😍😍😍
Which is it? Parents are confusing.
This is totally not a dig at anyone who has kids and just another way of looking at things, but, how is having kids any less selfish? That child doesn't ask to be here. People have kids because it's something THEY want. Just like those NOT wanting to have kids. Creating more people in an already over populated world isn't really beneficial. The least selfish thing to do is probably adopting someone who already exists and needs a home and love.
Exactly this. Having children should be the choice to justify. It affects not only yourself, but the child too. Let alone the enormous environmental impact of every extra human. When you really think about it, having kids is extremely hard to justify, if at all.
And yet, people who choose not to have kids are the ones who constantly need to justify their choices. Even though it literally does not affect anyone but themselves. It's just so twisted.
Dass what I've been saying!! Like it's arguably MORE selfish to have biological kids than it is to not have kids. People always say adoption takes too long and it's too expensive so you can't judge people for wanting to make new babies, but nobody makes that connection when it comes to IVF. Depending on your own fertility and luck, both IVF and adoption has the potential to end up costing the same amount of time and money. It's an invalid argument. As someone who has suffered for being born into a financially unstable family that contributed to a long list of lifelong problems, I swore to myself I will NEVER subject another person to this kind of life. It's a struggle to just barely keep my head above water every single day and it keeps getting tougher. I can't do this to another human being.
I feel like calling a woman selfish for not having children would be the same as calling a man selfish for not joining the military for four years. Some people just don't want to put their lives and careers on the line for the country, or society, or whatever.
Everyone's choice. My wife and I have two and we love them to pieces. If we could do it all over again, we'd NEVER in a million years have kids again. While they enrich our lives in many ways, they also destroy so much of us that we're barely recognizable anymore.
My wife and I don't have that much in common but one thing was that we loved traveling. That's completely over now. If we can even afford going somewhere with the kids, it's constant problems, complaining and annoyance.
We have absolutely zero alone time. We can't go out. Sex has become a charade that we've been trying to keep up with neither of us really being in the mood for it. Our off-work schedule is busier than going to work. After the Christmas break I literally felt that going back to work is like finally having a vacation. For us, it's living hell. I sincerely hope that not everybody feels that way about family life :-(
My honest, personal advice to anyone who asks me whether it's worth it: NO. I envy couples who still have control over their own lives.
I think a lot of parents feel this way. I've heard many, many parents make the exact same statement, from coworkers to internet strangers. I've been advised by my peers who have children to *not* have children, and that my decision to remain childfree is wise indeed. Even my own parents greatly support my childfree lifestyle. My question is: why are more parents not trying to warn others of their choice to procreate? Why is this ideology not mainstream? Is the "regret" that taboo that people can't be honest about their shitty, parenting life? If you have a valuable piece of wisdom, it is not to be kept with oneself. That wisdom is to be shared!
It's a taboo topic. If you say something like that in public here, the general opinion is that you're crazy and probably just a really lousy parent.
A lot of parents don't feel the same way too. Me, I don't regret my kids, I don't find them that difficult, I don't feel like my life has changed for the worse, my life is not even remotely shitty, if I had to go back in time i'd absolutely have kids all over again. In fact, maybe i'd plan better so I could have more.
But I also know these are my feelings and i'd never in a million years tell someone "you should totally have kids, they're great!" because that's none of my business and it's not everyone's cup of tea.
I'm honestly very happy to hear that. If everyone felt the way about kids that my wife and I do, it would be devastating
Misery loves company.
it gets better as they get older, honestly. I loved the teen years. We had a few tantrums when my daughter was 12 but even then it was much easier than dealing with a small child. I really enjoyed reading the books she was reading as a teen and watching her favourite tv shows and movies with her and hearing all the gossip about kids at school. By that stage they are also pretty independant.
My wife and I don't have that much in common but one thing was that we loved traveling.
I've always wondered if the more social or adventure-prone individuals would struggle more with the early stages of parenthood because they are unfulfilled with the homebody situation they are put into.
As a man who won't even get a cat because I don't want to deal with the responsibility, I certainly would never blame a woman for not wanting kids!
The ridiculous standards around motherhood? I could care less about that. We don't have a baby because we can't fucking afford it.
This! I do want to have kids in the future, but I don't think I'll ever be able to afford it. So I guess I won't. :(
I had a kid, but yes. Ridiculous standards. And I waited til I could (mostly) afford to, was an only child and had a lot of help from my parents.
Now I'm taking care of my remaining parent and my kid. The ridiculousness has increased three fold. And given the world's climate, I'm pretty scared for the future.
There's like... A LOT of people. Have you checked recently? It's like... A LOT a lot. We are good on people, thank you.
The sheer terror and confusion I've seen from people when I announced my vasectomy at 26 was astounding.
My friend responded "calm down. Wait until you're 40 or something" when I told her my partner (25) is getting a vasectomy. It's like people think we thought this up overnight.
I've known that I don't want kids since I was a kid (might have to do something with having an abusive parent).
Finding a partner who shares the same childfree mentality is fucking rough though.
I would have bought you a cake.
Women who choose not to have children are often labelled selfish, shallow and immature.
And yet, at the same time, we claim overpopulation will cause an apocalypse. How can it be selfish not to bring children into an overpopulated world?
I can barely pay rent with a roommate. You think I'm having a fucking kid that'll cost $10,000 at birth, plus $500,000 over their lifetime!? Not to mention no work protections, vacation time or PTO, etc... Having a kid is a fucking life imprisonment sentence in America. Except actual prisons give you free housing, food, and healthcare.
I want kids. American policies do not permit responsible parenthood though.
I've been thinking about this so much lately.
I'm 28, still in university getting my bachelor's degree (life got in the way). I have mental health issues and for the past year also mysterious physical problems that nobody has been able to figure out.
For years I was stressing out because I just assumed I would have kids and I wanted them around 30 so how was I going to do that? It really put so much pressure on me. I was stressing out about every aspect of my future kids' lives. I was terrified I wouldn't be able to handle constantly being needed.
I had to care for my dying dad a few years ago. Full-time. Honestly, it was hell. In the end it was like taking care of an adult sized baby/toddler. I couldn't sleep through the night, constantly had to do everything for him. I know it's different than taking care of a healthy child, all the horrible illness-related things aren't there. But it would still be exhausting. And what if your child isn't healthy? I just couldn't do it, and that freaked me out.
I also see how my brother's life is since having kids. He and his wife are constantly stressed, struggling and tired. They are always busy. I love my niece and nephew but I am so glad that they only spend the day with me occasionally. I'm so happy every time I'm alone again when they leave. I need my space.
Finally, a few weeks ago, my partner and I talked about it and decided we just won't have kids. It felt incredibly freeing to make that decision. I don't think it's selfish in any way, it's the only reasonable and good decision if you're not very very sure that you want kids and can take care of them.
No one who doesn't want kids 100% should have them. There are no takesie backsies. I'd also see someone not be a parent than be a shitty parent. I don't understand why anyone would encourage someone else to have children. If you want some and are prepared, then go ahead, but also, if not, by all means, fucking don't!
Generally speaking, more thought and consideration go into choosing to not have children.
I just had my first kid and I believe more than ever that no one should be forced to have kids. Pregnancy is hard, birth is hard, and taking care of a baby 24/7 is hard- so much more than I could have known. If it's not something someone wants to do I would never pressure someone into it. I've said it multiple times- I'm so glad I did it but I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy if it's not what they wanted.
The thought of becoming one of the "mommies" is just one of many reasons why I didn't have kids. Not even on facebook as it is, can't imagine the pressure of comparing myself AND my kids to other families.
And here I am tryna make one and can't.
Nature is a horrible joke.
Fertility struggles are a bitch. I wish you the best of luck 💙
Go check out mommy culture for a bit and then come back and tell me who is selfish, shallow, and immature.
How can we have the young support us when there are not a bunch of them is all I hear
Who's gonna pay into those pension plans and RRSPs is what they care about
Millennials everywhere: dafuq is a pension plan?
Yeah. Somehow reproducing to feed a bunch more fresh meat into the economic grinder of unsustainable growth that's turning our planet into a greenhouse is not an appealing prospect.
I kinda feel like many people here have so much self-awareness it's debilitating and would make better parents than most non-redditors, even with all the problems listed on this thread, barring passing on genetic disabilities
Here's the truth: I have two kids. I love them. I can't imagine my life without them. HOWEVER, I am on anxiety meds and in counseling because of many things and one of those is: I feel like an asshole for having kids. I brought two humans into this world that will one day die. This life, it's hard. And I'm forcing two beings to endure it. I feel guilty that the world they're inheriting is so messed up. The truth is, I'M the selfish one.
This is one of the main reasons I've decided I won't have kids. I can not consciously bring a being into a world which is so full of suffering and will be even more so as climate change progresses, just to fulfil a selfish desire to get to be a mum.
I don't like kids personally. I value my time, sleep and money but the main reason I chose not to have kids is because of climate change. We haven't taken hardly any action against it and I'm worried that our planet won't be sustainable in the near future. I don't want my kids to have to live like that.
28F here
I love the fact my husband and I are in agreement about not having children. My mum once said to me "if your partner wants them you might have to compromise" which meant "if he wants them you'll have to have them to stay with him" to which I responded FUCK THAT. It's not a 'compromise' to bring a child into the world just to stay with someone that might want them - that's selfish right there. Choosing not to have children because I like my life the way it is and don't want to bring an unwanted child into it that could then mentally and emotionally suffer from that feeling? Well that seems less selfish to me.
Thank goodness. Now I just have to find one of these women that don't want kids. Always thought it was more selfish to have kids. Bringing someone into this world simply because you want to is pretty much the height of selfish, as far as I can tell.
This is great news for other people who don't want to have kids either. The child-free movement is gaining steam!
So, my wife and I can financially ruin ourselves to bring a child into a world that our species is actively turning into a chemical toilet? Yeah, pass.
Besides, we f*cking hate children. Toodles!
I'm childfree. Love kids, but have very selfless reasons for not wanting them (mainly not wanting to pass on genetics that will make their life as hard as mine. Also climate change and all the reasons everyone else is mentioning). If that's not selfless, I don't know what is.
What upsets me is - WHY do I have to give a reason at all? When I tell people I don't want kids they say two things:
You will change your mind when you find the right guy (my response - if he wants kids, not the right guy)
All of my siblings have kids. Most of my friends have kids. I have never once asked them why they made that choice.
I honestly feel like some people have not evolved enough to distinguish between instinct and logic. These people are acting totally out of the biological instinct to procreate and to pass on genes + have someone to care for them when they get older. I'm one of the younger millennials and life has gotten so hard that none of my peers are happy. Everyone is depressed or anxious around me. We live in constant fear. I just can't bring myself to subject another life to this kind of existence.
The "someone to care for you when you get old" argument doesn't stick with me either. There is no guarantee your kids won't just abandon you in a nursing home - this is very often the case in the US.
My parents are getting to the age where we are discussing their will and care for when they get old. I hate to say it, but it's a real burden to take on caring for a parent.
That sounds so tough, I'm sorry you're so unsupported and everyone feels the need to weigh in with their shitty asshole opinions.
You couldn't pay me to have kids. It's way too difficult and so not rewarding enough imo. If you want kids, cool. I hope you are financially stable enough to do so. But don't shit on me because I choose to live my life differently. Not everyone wants to spend their time around children and that's perfectly ok.
My daughter decided that she didn't want children and I am fine with that as it is totally her choice and her body which people forget. If I was able to have children now, I seriously would not want to expose a child to this fucked up world, never thought I'd ever say this but there is too much prejudice, hate and lack of moral fibre beginning with World leaders to moronic followers. Lack of concern for climate change and don't even get me started on anti vaxxers. I believe its pretty much going to get worse.
I don't have children because I know they will disappoint me and I will fight myself not to hit them like my father did me.
That's honestly an excellent reason.
Never ever ever listen to Stefan Molyneux
Haha, no, the reasons I'm not having kids are the following :
I helped raise my much younger siblings and have zero illusions about how shit parenthood can get.
I was brought up by crazy people and have a ton of issues. I'd be a disfunctional parent and I'd need therapy in order not to fuck my kid up.
I'm barely over the edge of poverty and into working class. Diapers and formula are all that's needed to ruin me financially. I'd have to really on the government and/or my partner.
I'm single and intend to stay that way because I'm simply much happier on my own.
Giving birth seems horrible. I want no part of that, and I'll probably never be wealthy enough to adopt.
I just don't want to. When I save some money, I use it for my own experience. To travel, to relocate to another country.
Finally, you've seen the news? Australia was deemed one of the best countries to raise kids in, behind places like NZ or Denmark, and now the whole thing is on fire. We're stretching our planet's limits. The last thing it needs is someone who doesn't really like children and can't afford them to make some.
P. S : I also feel there is a certain selfishness to ignore what's best for the planet in order to perpetuate your genes and your family line. There is nothing special about it. You don't have a duty to perpetuate it. There is no shame in being a stump in the family tree.
As someone with infertility , Sometimes I wish women could like. Donate uterus to eachother. Like hey girl i dont need this but yours isnt working do you want mine?
What standards? My sister has 3. One's been adopted, two are in foster care and she's pregnant again with a fourth.
For the last while, I've been debating whether or not I want children. I think a lot of people (myself included) romanticize having children. I recently decided that I don't want them. I just enjoy my freedom and disposable income too much. Not too say I won't ever change my mind, but right now it's just very clear to me that nowhere soon am I going to want them.
Everyone that I know that doesn't want kids is because they know they're fucked up (myself included). I have depression its never going to go away. My family has a history or abusing drugs and being alcoholics they all had kids because its what society said they should do. They never thought of how their children would suffer. I feel this generation is more self aware. Not having kids because you know you'd make a horrible parent is one of the greatest things a person could ever do
Wanting and not wanting kids aside, social expectations and disbelief aside, and from a US standpoint, why would women want to have kids on demand? Families are struggling, healthcare is a mess, some districts have terrible schools, many two income families are trying to make it work but childcare is expensive, maternity leave is laughable, prices and insurance goes up and up while incomes barely keep up, and "ridiculous standards" are definitely a thing. Not to mention maternity wards closing in rural areas, and the maternal mortality rates in some states. The looming climate change crisis exacerbated by denial and terrible political decisions is the big fat cherry on top.
My friend always tells me that there is a difference between tradition and mindless repetition. The idea that all women stay at home, clean, and have kids is mindless repetition.
I don't understand why society can't accept some people don't want kids. As many others have said, kids shouldn't be brought into the world by people who don't 100% want them. It just isn't fair to anyone involved.
When people make the personal choice not to have children, it needs to be respected. There is a real double standard in our society when it comes to this. Men seem to get a lot less push back when we tell people we don't want to have children than women seem to receive.
My wife (F33) and I (M34) have been together for eight years and married for nearly five. Right from the beginning we have both been 100% against having children. My wife decided that she wanted to get a Tubal Ligation. She has spoken to several doctors trying to schedule the procedure, but they all refuse. Their reasoning being oh you'll change your mind. I can tell you she won't. She has never wavered in her decision.
On the other hand, after her trying to get a Tubal Ligation for more than two years, I went to my doctor and asked for a Vasectomy and got no push back at all. Two weeks after talking to my doctor for the first time about it, I had the vasectomy.
The double standard here is ridiculous.
I just got home from a kids birthday party and the whole time I was there, I was just thankful that I don't have any of my own.
I wonder how may of these ppl that label women who don't want kids selfish shallow and immature are willing to pay for prenatal care, medical bills that come with the birth, medical bills that come with having a kid and the bills than come with raising a kid and putting that kid through school and college of even a single woman?
You dont force someone who doesnt want kids to have them.
Ever have a cat that gave birth to a litter of kittens and abandoned them? Same thing.
There's no forcing them to nurse/care for them.
Ditch your old school mentalities.
Its her body. If she doesnt want kids it aint happening....unless of course you're willing to say that women dont have rights?
There have been some great comments on this post that have pointed out how people having kids are usually the more selfish ones than people who don't have kids, but I'm gonna add yet another thing I saw a few days ago: on an anonymous app that I like to waste some time on sometimes (Whisper), there was a post that asked "if you have kids, why did you have them?" Only 3 out of almost 100* replies were parents who actually ended up wanting the kids. The rest were either about how they thought they had to have kids as their next step in life, or [the most common one] protection failed and they felt they had to go through with it but didn't actually really want the kid.
Not only is it pretty selfish in my eyes, it's also somewhat irresponsible and so sad to me that so many kids are born only because some protection failed and weren't actually wanted so the parent just dealt with it.
And I know sometimes it happens that you accidentally get pregnant and end up actually wanting the child but I still feel like the kid deserves at least a plan and stability for it (especially in terms of finances).
I think it's fine that other people don't want kids. I'm 20 weeks right now and I'm excited. I'm one and done though and people think I'm not capable of choosing that. "You'll want more". No I won't. "You'll want that feeling again". Well what a shitty reason to have a kid, just so you can feel a certain way.
I'm financially stable-ish, in a good home with a husband I love. We decided to have one child and that's our personal decision. Other people are more than welcome to not have kids and that's ok. Some of my friends have chosen not to have kids and that's completely fine. It doesn't hurt me, it doesn't bother me, and I think it doesn't measure them as a person. The content of their character measures them. They've been supportive of me and totally cute about my pregnancy.
Some people just like to control others and I'll never understand it, especially when you get, literally, nothing out of it. It won't make me richer, run faster or jump higher if you have a child you don't want. So... why is this an issue for people? Some people don't want kids, get over it.
I believe it does benefit me if you're not hostile about the life you lead. That does bleed out and affect the community if you're not properly educated, fed, out of control of your life, financially struggling, etc. That's what I'm more worried about. Mental well being. If all those things are off, it has a negative impact on society. I just wish everyone could focus on what matters and quit distracting everyone with things that aren't a high priority.
Anything but selfish to not want to have kids. It's actually selfless and you don't have to be a mother to sacrifice.
The people who don't want kids probably know they can't support a child physically,mentally and emotionally! If you aren't willing to put in the time then don't have a kid. I think women should have a choice and their family members or friends shouldn't guilt trip them for making that choice.
My spouse doesn't want kids and never has. I'm older than her and that was fine with me. Some background, she is my second wife. It make me angry every time someone says she'll change her mind. It's absolutely infuriating! She is a physician and doesn't feel she could be both a good mother and a good physician. The idea that she must have children out of some societal need for it is just ridiculous. We certainly don't feel any need to have children, and between her job and mine, a child would be under the care of a nanny or daycare 12+ hours per day on average. But no one seems to care about that. We just keep being told we should have children. I fully support Women, and men choosing not to have children. It's certainly not a necessity.
If having a child wouldn't destroy a woman financially for life and make her earn only a percentage of what men earn, maybe more women would have kids? Why should women sacrifice their paycheck to keep everybody but them rich?
Climate. Change.
We (a couple) have chosen not to have kids at this stage because we don't want to raise children in the climatic disaster that we are headed for. And we would only be added to the displaced billions of the future.
The fucking world is burning. I cant afford to even live by myself. Im depressed. Why would we want to bring more people into this situation if we dont have to?
Bright side, it will fix that over-population problem
Yes, and for a lot of my friends with kids maternity leave is turning out to be the kiss of death for their careers.
They come back to work only to find that their work is slowly reduced until they're fired. Or they're kept on but given ridiculous jobs around the office just to keep them busy. I haven't had a kid but I am dreading balancing work and motherhood.
Some of them actually want children but do not agree with bringing children into a world in which we are living right now. Most women are treated like breeding cattle while the other half of the world is murdering each other. Not really that crazy of a concept.
More like global capitalism is failing. Economies are rigged against families and human beings are more isolated than ever.
Depending on the parents, having the kids can be the selfish act.
As if this planet needs more people anyway
The not-wanting-kids topic comes up a lot with my therapist, especially the societal expectations now that I'm married. I have about 150,000 reasons, including medical, to NOT have kids and like 2 to have them. They would be intelligent and beautiful. However, I took on my stepdaughter 100% when her mom decided she was done being a parent (different story for a different time...) and kicked her then-14 year old daughter out. I have absolutely loved getting to experience being a mother/maternal parent figure to her and helping her grow, but I sure as fuck don't want to do it again. One and done, and I skipped over the younger years. I've actually been trying to find a doctor who will give me a hysterectomy at my age (25, hubby is 14 years older than me) because of various medical issues that it would solve permanently. I do not want children. I helped to raise a teenager as a barely-adult myself. I do not like small children. I like a quiet clean house, traveling, and money. Call it selfish if you will, but I straight up do not want to go through parenthood again, and certainly not pregnancy or childbirth.
I want a child, but that's because I want to be a mom. I lost my first child in 2018 due to fetal abnormalities. But now I am scared to try again, jobs don't want to pay fair wages and all the other BS that occurs when having a baby. It's definitely not selfish to not want kids, especially when society makes it more difficult
Why does society give a damn what other people do? Isn't it their choice? I really don't get this. If someone wants kids, great. If they don't, wonderful. We should stay out of it.
How on earth is recognizing you don't want kids selfish? Jesus.
Huh? Wouldn't the opposite be more correct? Having children is incredibly selfish considering the impact it would leave on the environment, not to mention the disturbance children can cause when out in public if they choose to misbehave.
That's weird cuz I feel like if someone can't care for a child suitably it is selfish to have one anyway. But I do know that is what people say
I don't want them. They're a lot of work, bodily fluids, smells, and snot. They have more inane conversation skills than guys who like my tits but aren't interested in anything else about me. I pay high taxes and don't mind this, it provides for kids and families where I live. But I'm not going to use a youth center or prostate clinic and don't whine about funding those either. It's also true that unwanted children would only be a burden on a system like this, as would overwanted children meant to fill a void in a parent who can't handle their own shit (hi mom...)
But it's different in every industrialized nation, for example in the US. Their taxes aren't funding social programs, infrastructure, or education as much as a lot of war, military and surveillance technology, and services for people who were gullible or poor enough growing up to have been conned into going to war.
It's different in Australia too. Like, the place is literally on fucking fire. I can't imagine a more selfish thing than watching the world around me burn down and thinking, HEY! I REALLY WANT TO BRING A BABY INTO THIS MESS.
I cannot compute how motherhood is unselfish in general... like I get that you have to put another human being's emotional and practical needs first but I've done that in relationships with adult men and that wasn't selfish so much as stupid. I'm an active #BirthStriker and don't want to force another human to have to exist among idiots denying global warming, religious zealots, and vaccine truthers. I hate having to live among these twats...the former tends to mind boggle me the most but if I had kids those priorities would definitely change.
Like that anti-vaxxer one especially; "You're an anti-vaxxer, Mackenzie... yet I am selfish for not wanting to have kids when your little measles bombs are prancing about wiping their snot on communal toys?" And it is the anti-vaxx crowd who are the most ridiculous with mommy evangelism in my bubbles too! Like kindly fuck off, the only way to protect any type of offspring of my own is to not have them because your dumbass choice is just gonna kill other kids...
That I can even empathize on that level means I feel too possessive about an imaginary creature who will never exist anyway. And that's the most unselfish thing I could do for it, since it would probably be fucked up by life (or the shit air quality it'd have to breathe as soon as it left my body).
Society presented girls with more options than just mom and housewife. Why the big surprise that they took them up on those other options?
Hallelujah!!! Let the childless women unit!!!
And honestly, who fucking cares if her reason is selfish? Do you really want some selfish asshole raising a kid they don't want?
Fuck yeah I don't want kids becau see birth looks horrific and I want to have money. I'm not your goddamn baby incubater.
I'd think about having a kid if I could be the father and not the mother. I don't want to carry a child or be responsible for their feeding, sleeping, bathing, schooling, etc. That's exactly what would happen to me if I had a kid. My husband is not the type to be super helpful, I'd be saddled with typical 50s housewife work AND be responsible for working. I'd of course, do it all because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't give my kid everything they deserve. Yea no thanks. Being a 50s dad sounds like fun, being a mom? Hell no!
I'm not because I can't freaking afford one even though I have a really bad case of baby fever lol maybe if I am more financially stable in 4 years I might.
Just look at this crazy insane world. Why is not having a child selfish? Having children is selfish. What future do they have to look forward to?
Not every childless woman is childless by choice. And no, we don't want to detail our 10 miscarriages and entire medical history to prying strangers who insist that we are somehow emotionally deficient for not wanting children... those prying strangers always assume we don't have children because we did not want them. People should just let the childless be, don't judge, shame, or pity us. We each have our own reasons, weather by choice or just ran to the end of medical help and the ability to pay for it. Not everyone wants to adopt, that is a personal choice and not a brilliant answer that I need a prying stranger to tell me because I could not have thought of that myself.
Also, climate change? It's pretty clear as a society we are gonna do nothing about it so why put a child through that.
I have a two year old daughter and I cannot express how thouroughly fed up I am of hearing about how selfish I am for not giving her a sibling. The thing is, I know I can be selfish. Unlike time to myself. I like going to work and being around adults. I also know that my temper can be short, especially when I am sleep deprived. I want to be a good mum and I try very hard to be everything that she needs me to be, but I know that if so had another baby, all three of us would suffer for it.
I have a phobia of pregnancy (only to myself) and the amount of people that have said "Oh, you'll change your mind/the right man will change your mind."
That's not how phobias work. And once I say I have a phobia, I get the incredulous looks of not understanding. I want a family, but I don't want to bear my own children. Not for me. It's a hard thing for people to understand and I have only recently been vocal about it because I got tired of being asked when it's my turn.
I'm not having kids, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the "standards around motherhood". I don't want the responsibility of children, plain and simple. Raising my cat from a kitten was plenty of neediness from another creature for me.
I don't blame them. There is another dynamic no one likes talking about and that is mothers shaming other mother because they don't parent the same, give birth the same, or any of an infinite number of bullshit ideas "holier than thou" mothers use to put other mothers down. YOU'RE ALL MOTHERS. Support each other! You need each other! The govt. Certainly doesn't give a fuck about moms. Atleast not until they stop having kids to send to war. One post I see making rounds on social media every so often shows a womans belly with a scar from a C section with text saying something along the lines of "your not a real mom if you don't give birth naturally." That's bullshit. Mothers that do that shit, you need to stop gatekeeping motherhood. All mothers have a very tough job of raising their children and they need all the help they can get. Stop putting each other down!
Economics doesn't care about your customs. Unless the government corrects its economic policies, birthrates will get lower and lower as less and less of the populace will be willing to start families.
Increase the wages in proportion to inflation so a couple can actually afford to start a family. Lower the costs for healthcare and education. If these aren't done soon, most families will decide to only have 1 child. While those with more will only be due to human error.
Who would want to bring a child into this hell-scape of a world?
I think it's also worth considering the economics of the decision as well - my partner and I are thinking of trying for one of our own but we live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and also already have a little one from his previous relationship. It would mean trying to finance a bigger place to live while I'm taking time off work and then figuring out how to pay for childcare once I go back etc. The only other option would be to move but that means leaving my job and the area we know to start again somewhere more affordable (and having to build up maternity leave somewhere else). It's lead me to wonder if having a child is really a viable option for us in terms of money. We're still undecided and the thought of not having one of my own makes me sad - but it doesn't change the cold hard facts of money and I'm sure it's the same for many other women these days.
There are so many reasons for deciding not to have children - the disruption it would bring to every aspect of your life is definitely pause for thought and it's bullshit to dismiss that thinking as "selfish".
ETA: just realised the financial aspect is discussed further down. I got all caught up in my feelings and replied before I looked but I think my experience speaks to what the other ladies are saying about how people manage to have children.
I'm all for having kids. I'm 26 and have a 4mo baby boy. But truly IDGAF if you want or not have babies, that's non of my business. I'm might have my opinions about it, but I'm not the one who's gonna pay for your nappies and be sleepless. So do what you want, what you wish.
I always adore seeing headlines like this, just makes me so happy to see women really taking control of their lives
I wanted children (I never considered life without being a mom) but I did the math, childcare would eat most of my salary, I like my life as it is, and the environment can't cope with that many "miracles" anyway. That's a nope from me.
Fuck all that shaming. I don't want kids. I can't stand kids. I have no patience for kids. I don't like being around them, I'm the kind of guy that gets all huffy and annoyed when I get into a theater and somebody brings a gaggle of those little fuckers in tow and sits right next to you. Or you're trying to eat at a restaurant and the parents are letting them just climb all over shit and run amok at the booth next to yours.
I don't want them in my life. And I wouldn't date anyone who had them just to make sure I can keep on avoiding being around them. Call it what you will, but someone with an attitude like me should certainly not be raising children. It's a choice. Is it one that sounds somewhat selfish and bitter to make? Yeah, I can admit that. But so fucking what. It's my choice to make. My right to decide how I want to live and what I want to put up with and what I don't. Don't agree with me? That's OK because I'm not gonna sit there and try to talk you out of having your own kids. Do what you want. So when I woman tells me she doesn't want to bear children and raise them, my response is "Shit, why the hell would you want to?"
We're too prolific as a race anyways. Shit is getting crowded and overpopulated, and the more we grow the faster we're gonna piss through our resources and fuck the world up. So there needs to be people like us anyways who choose not to continue populating. Don't shame them. There are plenty of people who want kids, the human race will go on just fine.
They're just pissed because they gave us "choices" and we exercised them.
The more I learn about motherhood, the less I want it. My husband won't sleep with me anymore, my health is ruined, I lost my teeth and my hair, I don't have a life, all my friends are gone, and sometimes even worse stories of how a man or parents pressured a woman into having a child and then abandoned her without any support the moment it was born. Or even worse than that! I just... I don't know.
If we don't reproduce who will the capitalists exploit in their sweatshops and amazon distribution centers?
Why does noone think of the poor billionaires!? WHY!? Booohooooooooo :(
Selfish would be putting kids on the world with a climate crisis.
Women who choose not to have children are often labelled selfish, shallow and immature.
My Mom had eight and was still selfish, shallow and immature, as well as alcoholic. It kind of sucks to ask your Dad near the end of his life why he had so many kids and to hear "Because your Mom wanted to..." Kudos to people making better choices.
I have 2 kids and I ALWAYS support women who don't want children. My life revolves around my kids because that's just what happens when you now have to keep 2 little people safe and alive all the time. I do everything with my kids. But that was MY choice. It was also my choice to choose not to have a 3rd child when I got my abortion. I love my two kids, 2 is all I can handle, and it's all my husband can handle if something happened to one of us. I never try to pressure anyone to have kids soon. I never try to make my motherhood seem like anything it isn't. It's hard! It's rewarding. It's ridiculous at times! And frustrating! But lovely! And joyful! But it's not for everyone and that's okay! Do things at your own pace. Make the best decision you can and that's all you can do.
I don't want kids and have known this since I was 17. For years I would get "You'll change your mind once you meets the right man." If he were the right man, he wouldn't force me to have children that I don't want.
Luckily, my husband also does not want children. I'm currently 32 and can't wait til I'm the age when people just assume my insides have dried up and stop asking me about when I'm going to have kids...and then acting like it's a personal attack against them when I say I don't want them.
If you ain't into it don't do it. I have 3 kids, fucking love them but they are hard constant work. If that's not your thing there should be absolutely zero shame. I have days where I would prefer to stay in bed than be a fucking parent. If that was everyday shoot me!!
There's more than enough people on the planet.
I'm not sure if I want a kid or not. I would probably rather adopt, but my mother mocking me for having guinea pigs and them being her grandchildren, and mocking me all the time when I'll even get a boyfriend to start with.... I mean I'm trying, but I'm not so sure about children, because I would not make a good mom. Being bipolar and having a child just in hopes to have your hormones normalized, now THAT IS pure selfishness.
...and the right to sleeping in, extra savings, statistics of overpopulation and the world dying faster.
Yeah the ridiculous standards are 100% accurate. You'll know you made all the wrong choices, that you don't have enough resources or the selfless love and sacrifice required to be a great mom. Someone will always do it better. Even if no one tells you that you're a shitty parent, you'll still feel like you were. And then maybe your adult children will tell you that you're right, you WERE a shitty parent.
Then society must find another solution. People have the right not to have kids if they don't want that.
If governments put less money into wars, defenses, political parties, bribes etc and more into free and good quality!! daycares , paid parent leave for everybody, health care, I think people would be feeling more ready to start a family. We don't even have enough security in our lives to get married let alone have a child.
I can't understand the argument that women who don't want children are selfish. They are doing the entire opposite of selfishness, understanding that they don't want to, can not, will not look after a child and not putting a child through that. The population of the earth is getting out of hand, we need people who don't want children! Edit; spelling
Oh My God. If a woman chooses not to have a child then that's fine. She can do whatever she wants with her life's.
I can't have kids for health reasons. Unfortunately, I doubt adopting will be an option either (I actually always wanted children and so did my husband).
The amount of people that insist we adopt and/or look into every option possible is ridiculous. They can't accept that we've determined that kids aren't in our future.
Are labeled "selfish, shallow, and immature".... I mean. That's exactly why I'm not having kids. And honestly, I don't think having a kid would "cure" those things about myself.
Edit: I would also argue that having kids is just about the most selfish choice one can make.
It's absurd how shitty people can be. Who gives a shit if women don't want kids? It's not only their body, but as some people said here already, if you're not 100% into it you're gonna ruin their & your life. Not to talk about how overwhelmingly overpopulated our planet is, it ain't gonna be bad if there's less people...
When people try to say that I need to have kids I tell them "I don't want kids. I'm selfish and I don't like them. If more people could personally admit that to themselves and not have kids, there would be less abused and neglected children in the world."
Absolutely nobody has tried to convince me after I've said that to them.
Men aren't completely immune to this either unfortunately. I get flak all the time from my friends and family because I don't want kids.
Isn't it more selfish to have kids, cuz of global warming and overpopulation?
It takes a village to raise a child.
Some time ago, we stopped living in villages, and moved into houses, suburbs, and city apartments. Now, for the most part, mom and dad have to raise a child all on their own— with what little time they have, not spent at work.
I don't have a child myself, but if I try, I can imagine how difficult that must be.
I think when we start to learn again to build trust between more people; to live in villages, and not in our own little boxes; to spend more time living— and less time working— then maybe more people will feel like having more children again.
Be sure of your family's health issues before deciding. I have experienced chronic pain since giving birth. It crippled me to the point I had to give up being a parent because I couldn't keep up with kiddo's basic needs.
I think adopting a child is a much better option in a world that is overpopulated. There are so many children in the world who need somebody to take care of them.
If you are of child bearing age and choosing not to reproduce, even well meaning colleagues like to make wild assumptions about how much money you should make or how much time you should spend at work, because you know, you don't have the same familial responsibilities they do. Rather than basing the calculus on your value to the company or general policy, there is always some subjective judgment related to your decision not to have children. It's maddening.
Women are now realising they don't all have to become mothers by default , that we can have a choice about that massive decision. Society doesn't like it as woman = must love babies is being challenged
I just came from another thread where they talked about Hungary's PM providing free IVF to help his citizens have kids because he doesn't want immigrants to come and "replace" the native population. Commenters seemed split but some definitely seemed happy with this idea making crude comments about the reproductive ability of "third worlders".
There's all this talk about women not having enough babies, and this article doesn't go into it but I hear some patriarchal undertones and racial echos of the Great Replacement theory often mixed in the conversation. I'm Chinese American, I'm got two mixed race babies. When I hear conservatives say woman aren't doing enough to make kids, I'm pretty sure they aren't talking about me or my kids.
Can anyone say a reason for having kids that ISN'T selfish?
I think we have reached a middle point when it comes to motherhood and all it does is make women feel guilty regardless of what they choose. I've been looked down upon for choosing motherhood at 22. People tell me that I'm being lazy for choosing caring for my child over a fulfilling career. I went to university and I loved studying but I also knew I wanted offspring at an early age. Now I'm a homemaker and studying from home just cause I love learning. But it saddens me a little that if I were to choose not having children I would have been called selfish, now they call me lazy. My advice is fuck what anyone says. We women love putting each other down and I'm tired. You want kids? Have them. Want a career? Have it. Wanna be a stay at home mom? Fucking go ahead. Fuck what anyone says. I'm tired of the middle ground. There is not one societal standard but the stupidity of human nature of being judgy as fuck. There I said it sorry for the long comment.
"rediculous standards around motherhood"
I've gone into grocery stores and my toddler would randomly start rolling on the floor. By this time I'm usually exhausted and have already picked her up several times. But I'll try and struggle to get her into the cart only to have her cry until I let her walk with me. She tries and put things in the cart or grab stuff while I'm walking. Sure there's a reason she's acting out, but there's nothing I can do about it at the grocery store when I'm just trying to pick up a few things. So yes, for the sake of shopping quickly, I just let her do her own thing and make sure nothings gets broken. Sometimes I'll use my phone but not always because she has a habit of throwing it when she's upset. Things people have said while walking past me at grocery stores and malls: -"ugh, how could anyone let their kids play on the floor? That's disgusting." - "just let her do whatever she wants huh?" - "what's with parents giving their kids phones? Just make them sit still and they'll learn" - "this is why we need to bring back spanking" - "parents these days don't know how to discipline"
People will judge you as a parent even if your kid is healthy and happy. And if you're not mentally or emotionally prepared it can feel incredibly isolating.
Good. World has too many people as it is. Im not having kids partly through choice but mostly because I'm an ugly bastard
I saw an interview with 2 guys that wrote a book about population decline. The average births per woman is falling an a massive rate. Basically only Africa has a an average of over 2 births per woman needed to maintain population.
Their thesis was that when the population peaks in around 40 years it will fall quickly back
The first country affected by this is Japan which the UN expects to have a population in 2100 of half what it is today. The other country they call out is Russia where they said russians were going extinct.
This kinda falls I to this
If you want kids have kids. If you dont want kids then dont have them. It does not need to be more complicated then that.
Ufff, people are calling women who do not want to have kids selfish?
Well, not here; a bit odd, perhaps.
Plus it would be selfish, shallow, and immature to have kids without being certain that the kid would be provided for for 25 years.
I don't have time to wipe anyone's ass except my own.
Great way to do your part saving the environment 👍
Edit: just wanted to add that the sheer amount of unwanted kids that are ferried from foster home to Foster home, the sheer amount of kids being sold into human traffic rings. Don't fucking have kids unless you're 100% sure.
Im not able to have children due to unexplained ovarian failure which was diagnosed at 16. At 28, after getting married, I decided it was time to go to the doctor and figure out how to kick start those egg makers and they told me there was nothing to do other than adoption or egg donation. Those options didn't appeal to me and went through a rough phase of depression. But I realized after a while it wasn't depression over not being a mother, because I wasn't even interested in my options. I was frustrated about my body just not doing what lots of people do my accident.
Once I worked through that and found some passion projects and hobbies to throw myself into, I realized I'm totally ok with not having kids and I have a pretty rad life.
I knew someone who didn't want kids and was more or less forced to. She turned out to be a terrible mother and her kid is messed up. Some people should not have kids
Why would I bring a child into this fucked up world?
It's concerning how many other people are concerned with what we do with our genitals. Stfu and live your own life.
Oh I can cope, I don't want any kids right now either. I think it's a societal thing and not a gender thing so much. It's just where we are at today with the economy values and needs.
It's not just women. My 29 year old son doesn't want them. Says the world is too fucked up. I can't disagree. Maybe I'll get a grandchild from my daughter. If not, I'll deal with it. Neither of my kids will get a guilt trip from me if that's the case.
Is it really that complicated? Multiple of my females friends said: I don't like kids, not going to have one. They are annoying. To me that sounds super simple and if they don't want one, they just don't.
I don't know but women risk death and permeant body damage for having kids, so I just support the women make the choice of having kids or not.
Not to mention contemporary economic pressures. It can be impossible to afford a kid.
Can someone explain to me why people that don't want kids are accused of being "selfish"? I never got this one.
Basically they think we're selfish because we put our own wants and desires over those of a non existent child. Parenthood is 'selfless' and full of sacrifices, so those who choose to forgo that must be selfish by default, I guess.
What about the ridiculous amount of money it takes to raise them from 0-18?
How is not having kids selfish? Having kids at a time like this I find more selfish honestly. The worlds going down shits creek with climate change, over population, and war yet you call women selfish who don't want to raise a child in that type of environment and add to the problems? I'd call them brave. Not a popular opinion but oh well
I like how irrationally mad not having kids makes some groups or people. It's a sign of a time. You have to be so well gaslit to let something like that anger you. Perhaps that is an emotional response to you being trapped and not given the option yourself? Trying not to be snarky about it
Support human extinction
Do the right thing
End the human disease