No one wants to have kids anymore

> Babies are a huge opportunity cost. Financially speaking, they are like winning the lottery but backwards.

I can only assume OP is talking about people who work here? Here in the UK if you don't work you're fast-tracked a home for having a kid and if you have a few you're generally given a very nice 3 bed house so I'm not sure this applies generally. Typically you're very poor you're much better off for having a kid here.

I'd personally love a kid or two or three. My girlfriend too. And it upsets me deeply that I'll probably never be able to afford to have one. It's just so hard to afford a home, taxes, bills, student loans and all the costs of a kid on top of that. I've considered just giving up and going on benefits more times than I care to admit, but I think we both agree that wouldn't be the life we want either.

I don't want support, but the one thing that annoys me is how I know pensioners living in 5 bed homes who are receiving state pensions which unlike my salary goes up in line with inflation, while receiving help for energy bills and getting a host of other perks like discounted bus tickets, etc.

The fact the only people I know with homes are 60+ or on benefits seems weird and deeply immoral to me. Literally all my friends who work are in their 30s and living with there parents while my sister is a single mum in her 20s and somehow has her own house and a BMW (also partly given to her by the government). If we care to solve the birth rate problem it seems to me prioritising homes and resources for working families instead of the unemployed and pensioners would be the way to go.

Sorry for ranting, and I know I've brought this up before. But I feel this is the most important issue of my generation and no one is seriously discussing it. Happy to receive insults about how I don't care about the elderly and poor people now.

Babies are dead easy. They are incapable of expressing their will. You put them in a stroller, that baby is in the stroller. Yes, you have to feed and clean the baby and it will sometimes be hard to wrangle into whatever situation you want. But it doesn't have a choice ultimately.

Adults are also relatively easy. You don't have to do any of the cleaning or feeding, and you also don't have to tolerate anything you don't want to. Bob is being a jerk? Fuck him. Sally doesn't come to your birthday party? Well, now she's not invited to Friendsgiving. Etc.

Toddlers who grow into children who grow into teenagers are a whole category unto themselves. You slowly divest yourself of the cleaning and direct feeding duties. But you also can't just abandon them. When little Billy is pitching a fit, you have to deal with that. And as they get older and get savvier themselves, you're going to have to navigate that. You are going to have a lot of responsibility with decreasing levels of authority.

So now you have to get your kid to do what you would like for them to do without physical coercion. Ideally without much coercion if you want to preserve a relationship with them. You are going to have to convince them. And you aren't allowed to quit.

I just don't have the confidence, I don't have the friend network, and I'm just unable to deal with dating women with all the mixed messages and how women have internalized misogyny and sexism, which often makes relationships difficult. I support feminism, but I don't have the emotional intelligence to handle the problems women go through.

It's not that I don't want a family, it's mostly that I don't care.

Yeah.. I am a new dad to a 21 week old baby girl (our first) and I would say that the sleep deprivation stopped after about 8 weeks. The last few weeks have been absolutely amazing. I play with my daughter every day, I cuddle her, her giggles warm my heart and make me dream and get excited about the future. So many amazing things to look forward to. I can't wait to build a snowman with her. I can't wait to go snorkelling, skiing, ice skating, surfing, etc. with her. I can't wait to take her to places and answer all her questions and tell her stories and spend time together. Until now my best friend was my wife, but now we have an additional best friend in our life. It's someone to play a board game with in the evening when all our other friends are too busy watching Netflix. It's an extra person to have dinner with and have interesting conversations with. An extra person who will challenge me in my thinking, will educate me on issues I would be unaware of as an older person now. An extra person to argue with, love, hug, miss and root for in her own accomplishments.

Who doesn't want an additional best friend in their life? Someone who you love so much that you know everything that you accumulate in your life you can happily pass down to?

What I find interesting is that the same people who argue that having children is such a churn and piece of work because of the nappy changes, short lived lack of sleep, etc. are the same people who end up having 2 cats and a dog. That doesn't make sense to me. If you don't like to change nappies for a few months then why did you pick a pet which you'll have to walk to the park at 5am in the morning for many years to come just so it can have a piss and shit every morning. My friends with pets are much more limited in visiting restaurants or going on holiday than my friends with kids. Kids go everywhere, pets don't.