people used to look at children as a way to pass on knowledge, culture, adn ofc, genes
nowadays our genes dont matter so much unless youre a super athlete or mega genius, so passing them on seems frivolous to many. then theres the interent, which houses knowledge on damn near everything. so i guess it makes sense why the desire to carry on would be outweighed at this point
Friend of mine wanted kids. Can’t afford it. Both her and her partner work full time, though money was too tight for them to feel comfortable. It’s heartbreaking, really.
The US only has a positive birth rate because of immigration. It probably won’t be that long before we in the US follow Japan’s example and offer incentives for people to be parents. After all, if the R’s are feeling more that the "immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation and D’s are in favor of helping young people have kids, everything is in alignment for that to work.
I am a father. If you don’t want kids please please don’t have them. Whatever residual guilt or obligation you are operating under I ask you to purge from your system. The world has enough problems without bringing kids into it that you don’t want to raise. Being a parent is hard enough for people like me who want and continue to want to do it, I can’t imagine how much worse it will be for a person who doesn’t or didn’t want.
Yes it is true to one extent almost all parents are rising to the occasion. No one is fully ready and there is never a perfect time. But this is a retrocon. Just because you can figure out something and muddle through doesn’t mean you should have to be in that position to begin with.
Again please please do not reproduce if you are unwilling or unable to raise those kids. Leave the task to people who want to. If you still feel some guilt, for whatever reason, go look at some parent in your life and offer to help them with any little task. Even if it is just sitting on their couch playing with your cellphone while they can run out and buy groceries.
There is. Not sure why advocating for eugenics set to comedy worked so effectively. Maybe we just plain suck.
IQ is pseudoscience bullshit. People in economies above basic farming have more kids due to religion or the expectation that they will make more money in the future, not because they are dumb. Additionally smart is sexy. If your goal was for more kids to be born all you have to do is make everyone follow religions that push for it or radically shift economic gains to the younger population. Given that religion sucks and we are not going to rebalance the money we are left with the situation we have.
Me too, kids made my life so much better, but oof I hate when people push their lifestyle on others, child free and natalist proselytizers can both fuck off. We aren’t going to run out of people, or get too many, you can see it adjusting even now. It seems so normal for people in a crowded world to want fewer kids, and slow birth rate is so much nicer than war or plague as a way to control population.
Generally, people that are less educated or with shitty values. It’s not about genetics; it’s about the perpetuation of bad culture. If I were to name some groups that typify this: religious fundies and under-educated rednecks.
It’s hard to have this argument without coming across as advocating for eugenics, but I completely agree. The fact that increasing women’s education is so strongly correlated with decreased population growth is not a coincidence.
The difference between a eugenicists and whatever the hell I am is that I think the solution is to educate more people, not to control their right to reproduce.
Right. There’s also a huge difference between taking measures that affect birth rates and actively rounding people up and culling them. Eugenics has got to be the most equivocated term in the English language. Except maybe god.
Because life is and will continue to be pretty good for a lot of people. I definitely think it will be for my kid. Also, Idiocracy. If all the good, thoughtful people take your attitude then every human will be an idiot or asshole, which is an utterly hopeless future. I get that hopelessness. I felt more or less as you do for a while. But there a good, noble reasons to have a family. It’s not so cut and dry.
I mean let’s set aside that the world is ending, my wife and I cannot even afford to buy our own apartment, both with very good careers. Unless I inherit several million from my parents I just can’t see myself providing a good life for a child here in Canada. They would be set up for failure…
You’re totally right in that majority of breeders are idiots (obviously you are not one) and that’s just another reason I don’t want to bring a child into this. I would have to homeschool them.
Well, it sounds like you have a lot of reasons to not have children. I think that’s maybe the great understated tragedy of the economic fuckscape we live in: that a lot of good people can’t afford to properly have a family. There’s still plenty of room for happiness though, and I wish you the best of it.
This actually was a choice that my partner and I discussed before we got married. I have lived a charmed life but my mental health still is not great despite that; hard to justify creating another version of myself whose life experiences are fairly likely to be worse than mine.
Additionally my brother-in-law requires additional support. He’s an adult with learning difficulties and is unable to work. Eventually he’ll need to come and live with us once old relatives have passed away.
My father was infertile but they elected to go for a sperm donor so that I would have the option to choose whether I wanted to have kids of my own. In theory they could have made me with IVF but I would have likely been infertile too. I hope I’m not letting him down but I remind myself that he was giving me the option to choose as opposed to some kind of mandate to procreate.
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