I tried to engage more deeply with this post, but your counter-argument involves calling me a religious zealot and invoking Jesus as an example of someone who proves my ignorance. Presumably if the point is that Jesus had a meaningful life without having children, that I would relate to the Jesus example. I am an atheist, no one told me to have kids, but I'm glad I did. Jesus can do whatever he wants, I am pro personal freedom, and pro kid-having (clearly).
In terms of being a zealot in general, there are few things harder to counter-argue as adaptable than having children. Certainly it doesn't make sense for the majority of people to have kids in the context they are in, but it's very hard to against having kids period. It's an old thing because it is in many cases true in practice. So it's hard to counter-argue on the basis that we are monkeys on a rock who should know better, when we don't, and never will. Because eventually, everyone exists because someone had kids, and so on.
There is a significant relativity to meaning. It's not that having kids is a binary (meaning vs. no meaning). It's that for me, I feel, and others, it's that having kids is a step function in what meaning is. The first time you work and have that feeling of contributing, that's very meaningful. Having a kid is like that times 100. So kids are impactful on meaning in a relative, as opposed to binary sense. Very meaningful, relative to other meaningful things. And certainly relative to meaningless things.
So I think almost all of history too much emphasis has been placed on kid having. But among this community (Western Liberals?), kid having has a bad rep, for mostly bad reasons, that will almost definitely turn out be a failed social experiment (or else, this community as it exists will just stop existing and be replaced by children of those who chose to have them, in whatever form that takes, better or worse). The point isn't, everyone should have kids, at all. The point is, it's meaningful, and you don't need a house, two cars or two incomes to make it sustainable. That in fact, the struggle and financial impact may be worth it in the end.