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Life Without Children

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Re: Life Without Children

#21

Post by filoleg »

rocketpastsix wrote: post #15

This article sits weird with me. I am not having kids, nor is my partner. We are both medically unable to do so. I never really wanted to have kids, however this article is full of cons and almost zero pros to having a kid, something OP seems to have not even thought of. Are kids a massive responsibility? Yes. Can they be a burden? Yes. Can they also bring parents an immense amount of joy, happiness, pride and adjace…

This. I am in a similar boat to you in regards to having kids (minus the medical aspect, as far as i am aware at the moment, at least), and I absolutely don’t get the whole ultra-childfree rhetoric on the internet that borderlines on hating children and, very often, crosses into it.

It feels like those people cannot justify their decision to not have children without either painting them as the devil or painting the people who choose to have children as some brainlets.

Re: Life Without Children

#22

Post by teh_klev »

> It’s not a great world to be raising kids right now.

I was born in the late 60's and lived through 20 years of nuclear weapons proliferation fearing all out nuclear conflict (when Reagan won the US presidency my nuclear apocalypse anxieties stepped up a gear). My parents lived through the Cuban missile crisis as early 20-somethings wondering if the world had just bitten the big green banana. Add to that the destabilising proxy wars and games between the Soviet Union and the US around the world.

Was that a great world to be raising kids? Probably not but they still went ahead had me and then my brother. The world has always been a dangerous place but it shouldn't prevent you from bringing kids into the world because that generation might be the one that nudges the world towards being a better place. It's a bit of a failure of imagination to think the way the author does. Also I suspect the author is much younger than me, perhaps with parents around my age, they wouldn't be here if their parents had thought the same way, lucky (I hope) for them they didn't.

That being said, I don't have kids, not because of any of the reasons listed in that somewhat flawed article, I just never got around to it and I'm terrible at sustaining relationships that last long enough for me to have been comfortable being a dad. There is a part of me that wishes I did, but I don't obsess over it.

Re: Life Without Children

#23

Post by philwelch »

nononono109 wrote: post #20

Anyone who finds themselves tending towards this nihilistic, fatalistic worldview desperately needs to recognise the extremely harmful predicament they find themselves in and work instead towards a life of meaning and purpose. I would further urge them to reflect on who is playing the fiddle that is leading them down this terrible path so that they can go forward with knowledge of their enemy. Children are your purpo…

While I don't disagree with you, I also don't find it particularly useful to try and change these people's minds. Anti-natalism can be a self-correcting problem. Just let the anti-natalists die off (as they inevitably will, by definition) and they will be replaced by people who made better choices.

Re: Life Without Children

#24

Post by aivisol »

philwelch wrote: post #23
nononono109 wrote: post #20

Anyone who finds themselves tending towards this nihilistic, fatalistic worldview desperately needs to recognise the extremely harmful predicament they find themselves in and work instead towards a life of meaning and purpose. I would further urge them to reflect on who is playing the fiddle that is leading them down this terrible path so that they can go forward with knowledge of their enemy. Children are your purpo…

While I don't disagree with you, I also don't find it particularly useful to try and change these people's minds. Anti-natalism can be a self-correcting problem. Just let the anti-natalists die off (as they inevitably will, by definition) and they will be replaced by people who made better choices.

I agree with you totally. There is one problem, however. That those will be our children in which we invested, who will have to take care of them while they are old. That is not fair.

Re: Life Without Children

#25

Post by mikestew »

rocketpastsix wrote: post #15

This article sits weird with me. I am not having kids, nor is my partner. We are both medically unable to do so. I never really wanted to have kids, however this article is full of cons and almost zero pros to having a kid, something OP seems to have not even thought of. Are kids a massive responsibility? Yes. Can they be a burden? Yes. Can they also bring parents an immense amount of joy, happiness, pride and adjace…

It's the reason I quit hanging out with the "child-free" folk at a major software company (they even had an internal distribution list). For many it seemed, their whole identity seemed wrapped up in not having kids, and dinner conversations turned into "can you believe parents?" and conspicuous consumption because you're not spending it on kids.

I like kids well enough, and though they stress her after a while, so does my wife. We just don't feel the need of any of our own. And that's what it boils down to. You think you're going to talk your spouse down when they have Baby Fever because the economics don't work out? Because you value "your freedom"? Just get the divorce over with now, or get used to the idea of kids. You needed to start working on being less of a selfish prick anyway.

Re: Life Without Children

#26

Post by malandrew »

cercatrova wrote: post #13
abnry wrote: post #4

>It’s not a great world to be raising kids right now. It's never been a great world to raise children in. Years ago the child mortality rate meant every family had a Jimmy that wouldn't make it to age 5. It bugs me no end when people assert without citation that the world is worse than it ever was. One thing to keep in mind is that our awareness of the bad things in the world has certainly gone up due to our digital…

What annoys me even more is thinking that because the world is the best it has ever been that there are no more problems to solve and that we should be content. You may not believe this personally, but I see this argument a lot, especially from people like Steven Pinker, who then seem to avoid the issues laid out by the other child comment, like stagnating wages and corporate profit.

Problems doesn't really exist. They are an abstraction that results from an individual analyzing what they perceive to be a mess. When someone proposes a problem, they really only reveal things about themselves and their thoughts than some "truth" about the nature of the world. There are no problems in nature. Without analysis and judgement, things just are.

You claiming that stagnating wages and corporate profit are problems is no more valid than a business owner/builder complaining about rising wages and dropping corporate profits. Both are equally valid depending on whose shoes you're in.

You can also be in either person's shoes and arrive at a different analysis and perceive different problems depending on who you are as a person and how you see the world.

Re: Life Without Children

#27

Post by pmiller2 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #14
pmiller2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget crime, sickness, and the like. Let's look at stagnating wages [0] in the face of spiraling education, healthcare, and housing costs; anthropogenic climate change (which even the oil companies have known about since 1977) [1]; and the continuing trend of corporations being allowed to socialize losses while privatizing profits. Having children is also one of the worst things an individual can do in terms of carb…

We have two kids, my partner is a stay at home parent (their choice), and I earn enough on a single income for our family to enjoy a reasonably high quality of life in a low cost of living locale. You’re absolutely right that kids are expensive. They are a choice, and to each their own. Agreed, there are serious problems to solve (healthcare, income and wealth inequality, clean energy, electric mobility, justice and…

I don't think your choice is wrong. I'm saying we made the choice that's right for us. If we're lucky, she and I both have at most about 60 years left on this earth. Any kids we would have today could possibly be alive 100 years from now. With the trajectory we're on with climate change, inequality, global instability, etc., we just didn't think it was a responsible choice for us to procreate.

You and I may know we're borrowing the Earth from future generations, but most humans on the planet aren't that conscious of the fact.

Re: Life Without Children

#28

Post by mikestew »

pmiller2 wrote: post #11
abnry wrote: post #4

>It’s not a great world to be raising kids right now. It's never been a great world to raise children in. Years ago the child mortality rate meant every family had a Jimmy that wouldn't make it to age 5. It bugs me no end when people assert without citation that the world is worse than it ever was. One thing to keep in mind is that our awareness of the bad things in the world has certainly gone up due to our digital…

Forget crime, sickness, and the like. Let's look at stagnating wages [0] in the face of spiraling education, healthcare, and housing costs; anthropogenic climate change (which even the oil companies have known about since 1977) [1]; and the continuing trend of corporations being allowed to socialize losses while privatizing profits. Having children is also one of the worst things an individual can do in terms of carb…

Let's look at stagnating wages [0]

When they stagnate to the point that I need to send Johnny to the coal mines (it's amazing the tight spots he can squeeze into) to make up the difference, get back to me. That is, if we don't all die from lung disease from this "London fog".

IOW, yeah, there's always something to make it look like this is the worst it has ever been. But it isn't a tough argument to say that it is no less "a great world to be raising kids right now" than it has been any other time.

Re: Life Without Children

#29

Post by fiftyfifty »

rocketpastsix wrote: post #15

This article sits weird with me. I am not having kids, nor is my partner. We are both medically unable to do so. I never really wanted to have kids, however this article is full of cons and almost zero pros to having a kid, something OP seems to have not even thought of. Are kids a massive responsibility? Yes. Can they be a burden? Yes. Can they also bring parents an immense amount of joy, happiness, pride and adjace…

There is an additional security that kids can provide their parents even today. I have 3 kids that are all in various stages of finishing up school and starting their careers. We've stayed pretty close as a family and there is no doubt in my mind that my kids will always be there for my wife and I as well as each other, if we were to need it. As it stands right now, current events have forced all of my kids to come back home (which has actually been kind of awesome), but if something like this (pandemic/recession) happens in the future those roles could easily be reversed. It helps that my wife is Asian and has instilled a certain level of family obligation in our children. It's a heck of an investment, supporting another human being for 22 years or more, but no one will look out for you the way your own family will.

Re: Life Without Children

#30

Post by pmiller2 »

mikestew wrote: post #28
pmiller2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget crime, sickness, and the like. Let's look at stagnating wages [0] in the face of spiraling education, healthcare, and housing costs; anthropogenic climate change (which even the oil companies have known about since 1977) [1]; and the continuing trend of corporations being allowed to socialize losses while privatizing profits. Having children is also one of the worst things an individual can do in terms of carb…

Let's look at stagnating wages [0] When they stagnate to the point that I need to send Johnny to the coal mines (it's amazing the tight spots he can squeeze into) to make up the difference, get back to me. That is, if we don't all die from lung disease from this "London fog". IOW, yeah, there's always something to make it look like this is the worst it has ever been. But it isn't a tough argument to say that it is no…

Take those stagnating wages and compare them to what the cost of higher education would be in ~20 years if it increases at the same rate as it did the past 20 years. I'd be fitting Johnny for miner's helmet as soon as it was legal.
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