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The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

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Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#21

Post by supersrdjan »

wkat4242 wrote: post #3

I can imagine. For me it's the reason also to not want kids. I want to enjoy my life. But it's good for environmental reasons to not have kids anyway.

The environmental argument against kids insults me (not that you should care). As if it's a binary choice between preserving the environment and preserving our species. I like to think that humans of tomorrow will find ways to solve problems we don't yet know how, so that we can save the environment and our species :)

That said, here's a fine poem in support of your angle: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48419/this-be-the-ver...

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#22

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

keyle wrote: post #19
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was agreeing with you until you wrote: > we're decreasing, the typical white middle-class couple is facing extinction. [...] I don't mean this with a grain of racism Please don't do this. "We" on HN and in the west and in world in general is incredibly diverse. Your comment disrespects this human diversity. Please take some time to think about that.

I actually removed it after trying it to word it differently as I knew someone would pick on this instead of focusing on my main point. Thanks.

Your main point is, to be clear, inherently discriminatory on a basis that looks a lot like a shallow proxy for race.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#23

Post by Uinchuling »

wkat4242 wrote: post #3

I can imagine. For me it's the reason also to not want kids. I want to enjoy my life. But it's good for environmental reasons to not have kids anyway.

People who don't care about the environment are breeding like rabbits. Their children, too, won't care about the environment.

The best thing you can do for the environment is to find someone as passionate as yourself and create a large family of conscientious, thoughtful, active environmentalists.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#24

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

keyle wrote: post #17
trevyn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going to a restaurant twice a week with your partner, when you're 40+ and no kids, will get very repetitive and boring. That is a very strange perspective.

How so?

Because it's not the high-water mark of childless existence?

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#25

Post by davedx »

notfried wrote: post #18

For those of you who decided not to have kids in your 20s-30s, and are now in your 40s+, when changing that decision now becomes increasingly more difficult: did you regret it? Did your position of “I want to live my life, I don’t want the hassle or the cost, or there are too many humans already, or something else”, did that position change or weaken? Asking for a friend :)

I had my first child in my mid 30's, and one of my friends started when both him and his partner were in their 40's. No regrets, but the biological challenges can be very real -- my friends had to use IVF for both their pregnancies.

I don't know anyone who had kids a bit later in life who regretted it purely due to their age. Though being now in my mid 40's I think I would struggle with the sleep deprivation and noise of a new baby....

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#26

Post by Affric »

remoquete wrote: post #11

I've three kids. It's wonderful, it's exhausting, and it's often terrifying. Being a parent is a painful experience, but so is living life. Would my life be easier and less painful without them? Yes. Would my life be better without them? No, just different. I respect antinatalists, but I chose differently. I chose to bring laughter and joy to this absurd, meaningless Universe we habit, even if for a brief lapse. Is i…

Life is what any of us make it. The antinatalist position is fundamentally fatalistic. It’s a total negation of the one redeeming feature of the universe: anything could happen.

I respect not having kids. The idea that you’re inherently better off not having kids is nonsense.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#27

Post by saagarjha »

Uinchuling wrote: post #14
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was agreeing with you until you wrote: > we're decreasing, the typical white middle-class couple is facing extinction. [...] I don't mean this with a grain of racism Please don't do this. "We" on HN and in the west and in world in general is incredibly diverse. Your comment disrespects this human diversity. Please take some time to think about that.

[flagged]

This isn't how discourse works and you know it. It is eminently acceptable to censure people who put forward racist and eugenicist views even if done so politely.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#28

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

You could also just work less, or let yourself spend less time and energy on your kids.

I get that most people recoil in horror at the latter one. I think they're silly. The fact of the matter is the world is a safer and more prosperous place than ever before. You should be able to invest less into your children than your parents did before you and still have them lead happy lives.

If you have a child, and your own life isn't a pile of misery, you can be reasonably confident your kid's life won't be either. After all, you grew up in a poorer world than they did. But if you hold back on having children because you fear you can't afford to send them to Yale, or buy them all the Steam games they ever wanted, you're probably not saving them from a life of pain, you're just depriving the world of another soul which could've had a beautiful experience here.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#29

Post by XorNot »

davedx wrote: post #25
notfried wrote: post #18

For those of you who decided not to have kids in your 20s-30s, and are now in your 40s+, when changing that decision now becomes increasingly more difficult: did you regret it? Did your position of “I want to live my life, I don’t want the hassle or the cost, or there are too many humans already, or something else”, did that position change or weaken? Asking for a friend :)

I had my first child in my mid 30's, and one of my friends started when both him and his partner were in their 40's. No regrets, but the biological challenges can be very real -- my friends had to use IVF for both their pregnancies. I don't know anyone who had kids a bit later in life who regretted it purely due to their age. Though being now in my mid 40's I think I would struggle with the sleep deprivation and nois…

For me it became an estimate of how old I wanted to be when my son turned 20. In my 50s seemed better then my 60s.

Re: The New Work-Life Balance: Don't Have Kids

#30

Post by remoquete »

roenxi wrote: post #16

Well, lets look at the data over at OurWorldIndata: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un?tab... Looks like the last time there was a big change was 1960, I assume that was the development of good birth control techniques. I'd theorise that families never really wanted children, and once given the means to make effective choices we discover that humans don't think it is that rational to have kids.…

There's nothing rational in having kids, as in many other things we do as human beings. I've no arguments to refuse books like David Benatar's Better Never to Have Been. Actually, I agree with most of his theses. The only rational actors that want us to have kids are governments, because citizens pay taxes and provide soldiers.

Still, I embrace my lack of rationality. It's what makes me human.

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