Having children in today's society

Ilo

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Feb 7, 2021
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I noticed a strong tendency of people stating that it would be a bad idea to have children in this age. This confuses me since nowadays, a large chunk of the human population has a higher quality of life than previous generations, including life expectancy, access to education, nutrition and safety, as well as basic human rights (regarding the developed world). Moreover, this trend of improved day to day life does not seem to stop any time soon. Compared to the entire history of mankind, objectively speaking, there has never been a time where this many people have led comfortable lifes, despite the existence of suffering, which, if we are honest, will never completely end in the real world.

I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
 
1. A cultural backlash against the assumption/default of child-having as a part of your life, especially (but not completely) with women who are rightfully pushing back against the broad social idea that their default goal in life should be child bearing.

2. Population trends always go down as quality of life gets better. We don't need to have 400 kids so enough of them will survive smallpox to work the farm come harvest season.

3. WE'RE ALL BROKE. People in their prime, physical child bearing age are currently in the worst economic place in history.
 
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I think you are right that children are far less likely to die young, or be sent to clean chimneys, be sold into slavery or prostitution etc than in the past. That said children now eat up a bigger proportion of people’s wealth than they used to and people generally compare their prospective children’s lives with those of a generation before them rather than with those further back in history.

Compared with their parents’ lives, people thinking of having children may feel like they have less job security than their own parents so may worry that they won’t be able to rely on supporting their kids through to their late teens or beyond if their kids can’t get good jobs and housing.
 
Ilo said:
I noticed a strong tendency of people stating that it would be a bad idea to have children in this age.
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What data are you looking at?

In the UK there has been a significant increase in pessimism most marked at younger ages (doesn't matter so much for fertility what middle-aged and old folks think), this article speculates about the causes and regards the social effects of mobility restrictions as causing much of it.

(I think that use of Tinder likely breaks lockdown rules, although its numbers have apparently soared)
 
Beyond economics, being pregnant is a nightmare and the amount of unsolicited advice and judgment that gets heaped on parents for everything is not fun either.

Looking around at this and thinking that maybe having more more money and free time is the batter path is pretty reasonable.

I have a 2 year old and I'm 48. I'm pretty sure sleep deprivation gave me brain damage. I love my kid but I l see why people would give this a miss. Especially if you aren't in a position to have kids until your 30s and are (1) less up to it and (2) have gotten to like having personal freedom.
 
Personally, I think one of the scourges of the modern era (that will be mined for decades in come in therapist offices) are "mommyblogs" and associated messageboards (and Facebook groups). They seem to push the wackiest of childrearing notions into people who would otherwise be practical.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Personally, I think one of the scourges of the modern era (that will be mined for decades in come in therapist offices) are "mommyblogs" and associated messageboards (and Facebook groups). They seem to push the wackiest of childrearing notions into people who would otherwise be practical.
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Like everything else there is nothing worse the taking a good idea and letting a fandom develop around it.

And yes the self proclaimed "Mommiest Mommies of the Mommy" have created a toxic version of parenthood, a world where either your children are making you miserable and you are a martyr for it or the fact that you have children is the excuse as to why that you get to make other people miserable.
 
Climate change is about to bend our quality of life over and **** it, to be blunt. Any gains we have made as a species will soon be thrown into serious jeopardy. I don't want to make my own people and leave them to suffer through the end of days.

Plus, I'm lazy, selfish, and mentally unstable. And I think pregnancy is gross. I don't particularly enjoy being alive, and I think inflicting a condition I don't like on someone else is unethical.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Like everything else there is nothing worse the taking a good idea and letting a fandom develop around it.

And yes the self proclaimed "Mommiest Mommies of the Mommy" have created a toxic version of parenthood, a world where either your children are making you miserable and you are a martyr for it or the fact that you have children is the excuse as to why that you get to make other people miserable.
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It's not even the extreme cases, I'm talking about just weirdo childrearing notions being spread online and people falling for them. Because a lot of people would rather listen to strangers on the internet than do things the way their own parents did, even if they turned out just fine themselves as evidence of their parents' success!
 
Suddenly said:
Beyond economics, being pregnant is a nightmare and the amount of unsolicited advice and judgment that gets heaped on parents for everything is not fun either.

Looking around at this and thinking that maybe having more more money and free time is the batter path is pretty reasonable.

I have a 2 year old and I'm 48. I'm pretty sure sleep deprivation gave me brain damage. I love my kid but I l see why people would give this a miss. Especially if you aren't in a position to have kids until your 30s and are (1) less up to it and (2) have gotten to like having personal freedom.
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Our first was born when I was 40. It went ok. So we had another when I was 42. At that point, I got a vasectomy. I had enough of that.
 
Butter! said:
Climate change is about to bend our quality of life over and **** it, to be blunt. Any gains we have made as a species will soon be thrown into serious jeopardy. I don't want to make my own people and leave them to suffer through the end of days.

Plus, I'm lazy, selfish, and mentally unstable. And I think pregnancy is gross. I don't particularly enjoy being alive, and I think inflicting a condition I don't like on someone else is unethical.
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"As a species" certainly.

It may be crass to say, but most people on this forum will probably get through climate change.
 
Not every personal choice is some grand philosophical declaration.

We don't need to have the "Is mankind worth saving?" discussion here.
 
And yet one is saying that a reason for not having kids is the hardship of dumping on them the requirement to save mankind
 
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