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Humanity’s future is gloom too.
Hasn't been the message for the last 2000 years?
The current era is better to raise children than many other eras where human rights didn't existed. Although it depends on which society too. Many of those worries are very subjective. Having or not having children ultimately is a personal choice* (except when is not e.g. Rape) and neither is wrong. Whichever you chose you will miss the benefits of the other. Both have pros and cons.
yeah this is what I agree with.
Never had any interest in having children, and the more I've learned about the state of the world the happier I am with my choices.
Same.
No plans to create my own children. I've always felt that it's far more important to adopt a child that's been abandoned by an uncaring society then to make another. I don't have any genes important enough to try to reproduce (and few people do). If you can't find it in your heart to love a child that doesn't contain the same genetic material as you, I think you should reconsider being a parent
Haha. "Adoption". There haven't been any recent world wars. No plagues (close miss on that though). There are no children to adopt. So few, in fact, that those who want to adopt often find themselves on waiting lists...
So much so, that many give up on that course of action, and instead choose to fly halfway around the world to buy children from warlords and conmen in Africa.
Or, you could become a "foster parent", which is like adoption except that the kid's even less yours... they might come along and yank them away from you for a variety of reasons. The most heartbreaking of which, I'm told, is that the real parents have convinced some bureaucrat that they won't abuse or neglect them like they had been doing, when experience suggests that it will just happen again.
Though, don't be too sympathetic to the foster parents, they're helping the government prosecute the war on drugs and ruin families, just by supplying the demand for child abduction technicians. And all so they can scratch their itch of (fake) parenthood and feel self-righteous about it.
Also if you want to adopt you need a very square life where I live. You need proper jobs, a lot of money to show them, be married etc. Not saying this is bad, it's probably best for the adopted children, but I don't have many of these things.
Your pessimism and ignorance is truly astounding. There need not be wars for children to be abandoned, and it should be common knowledge at this point that foster parents have a high chance of being nothing but another loveless cage for orphans to suffer in. Full fledged adoption is hardly done right, but that's all the more reason why good and caring people should step in and try.
I grew up around orphans, and I know how hard and lonely it is to be foisted from foster family to foster family, surrounded by siblings and adults who resent and use you until you're once again abandoned to some other equally cruel house. Maybe you don't think adoption does any good (god knows why), but I know for certain that there are a lot of children who grow up alone without any support that would be so much better off if they had someone in their life who truly cared for them. Is it really better to just not care at all than to try and help even one person? If you think so, you're a terribly sad person.
i don't want to have kids because i believe it's unethical for some average joe, or in fact anyone that isn't an expert in child psychology and child development, to subject a human being to potential lifelong trauma because "babies be cute doe". also i think the hype is overblown. society feeds you the lie that you need to have kids to feel fulfilled and happy, but in reality there are many other ways to do that and they don't involve a very high risk of ruining someone's entire life. surround yourself with people you like, create a daily lifestyle that energizes and refreshes you, and spend time on your passions. one or all three of those things could involve children, but for most people they will not.
i think refraining from raising children because "humanity's future is gloom" isn't entirely logical. even absolute climate catastrophe would be better than most of human history because of the technology available to us, and at worst it would be just as bad. humans have been born and lived in the worst possible conditions, they can do it in these ones too. definitely adopt though, creating children is still dumb for other reasons.
i don’t want to have kids because i believe it’s unethical for some average joe, or in fact anyone that isn’t an expert in child psychology and child development, to subject a human being to potential lifelong trauma
Only PhDs in child psychology should reproduce? So, you want humanity to be extinct, that's a more ethically sound position than "sometimes bad things happen to some people"?
society feeds you the lie that you need to have kids to feel fulfilled and happy,
You've got 4 billion years of genetic coding that insists, even demands that this is true. The last few tens of millions of years hardcodes it directly into your meat brain.
Society? If society ever did that, it ceased doing it almost a hundred years ago. Now, you can't turn your head or hear a dozen words from some random stranger proclaiming the opposite is true and that anyone who says otherwise is a misogynist, masochist, or biblethumper.
There of course are many reasons for that. If you believe transexuals are healthy, important individuals... how could they participate in parenting if they're mutilating their reproductive organs? So, parenting and reproduction now have to be bad or at least discouraged, to push the other message more fully. Not just them, of course, it's not fair to single them out when there are so many other degenerate lifestyles that, if you embrace them, you also can't embrace the idea that parenting is important without being hypocritical.
The end result will be, of course, that these lifestyles die out. The question is, will they take everything else with them.
So, you want humanity to be extinct, that’s a more ethically sound position than “sometimes bad things happen to some people”?
Yes. Suffering should be eradicated at all costs. Humanity doesn't have an inherent right to exist, it simply does as long as it is perpetuated by both humans themselves and while external conditions allow it.
degenerate lifestyles
I see your beliefs now. Well, no wonder you also disagree with this viewpoint then.
Suffering should be eradicated at all costs
What is suffering? I've lumped that word in with all the other religious claptrap like "soul" and "afterlife" and whatnot.
Are you talking about pain (the sensation)? It doesn't seem that you mean that, but if you did it would be absurd. "Pain should be eradicated" makes no sense. It can't even be said that pain should be avoided, since discomfort is often associated with worthwhile, and ultimately pleasant, activities.
Define suffering so we can be on the same page.
Humanity doesn’t have an inherent right to exist,
True, as far as it goes. But it's like "turnips have no inherent right to exist". Pretty meaningless, and in the context where people actually want to exist (and for others to exist), somewhat misleading.
I see your beliefs now.
Please, read my palm. Tell everyone what my beliefs are.
"I try to be." Uhm is there a middle ground here between do or do not? It seems like rather a binary choice lol. Anyway ya, life is shit and this is hell, no way am I bringing more sapient life to this shithole.
It seems like rather a binary choice lol.
Well there is adoption or babysitting; but I'm trying to stay committed to my decision to be childfree.
I've raised four kids but reared none of my own. Of the four step kids, three girls and one boy, only one of the girls has hatched their own. The other three have zero interest in having kids...unless you count cats.
I have zero desire to continue my bloodline. I'm okay with adoption, but not particularly interested right now.
I am not, got a 10 month old boy. Its a lot of work, but definitely worth everything. Its incredible how happy he is all the time.
I would have liked to, but my husband was a hard no. We're gay and the risks and difficulty involved with adoption are pretty high. He just didn't feel like either of us were up for that, and honestly it may be true. If he's a no and I'm a soft yes, the default goes to no. It looks like my brother is headed the same direction.
Still, I always will feel a little sad that I won't be able to raise a kid or two. In terms of a stable marriage with decent income, we could offer that. I think I could be a decent parent, so it makes me a little sad that I will have little legacy to pass down to the next generation.
Just had my first want 2 or 3
I don't have kids nor do I want kids, but I try not to judge others, particularly people who aren't super privileged, for having kids.
Privileged (rich) people who have kids though? They kinda irk me because it's so obvious that they know the world is fucked but they clearly have the money and privilege to keep their kids in a little bubble.
I personally don't want to, I'm not good with children
I don't have any but want 2 I think. A few years ago I didn't want any but I guess I got older
I'd recommend considering adopting, if you don't mind me saying so. More paperwork sure, but way less pain for you or your partner, and they're really usually perfectly good kids. My neice, nephew, and cousin are all adopted, and they're no less a part of the family than anyone else.
It makes a world of difference to a child that already exists, and you spare the unborn the existential crises our world is facing- huge win-win.
Two's a good number. Not sure I'd say it out loud, it's like daring fate to give you triplets.
Do cats count? Otherwise, I'm childless.
I am not currently, but wish to be that in my future.
Yes. I'd rather be the "eccentric uncle QuentinCallaghan" to my siblings' kids than a father to any kid in a world like this. I'm so used to having my own independence and freedom, and I'm a hedonist to some extent. Also having kids would require a relationship, and the Yellowstone volcano erupting is more likely than that.
Yes, unless you count my dog.
What do you mean by try to be?
I put in effort to avoid having a child; but I feel like I'm tempted to compulsively have one. No one is around me right now and I didn't have sex; so I'm safe rn.
but I feel like I’m tempted to compulsively have one.
You're unusually perceptive. No joking.
I always wonder at the people who say they want none, then get drunk and fuck without contraceptives. They're unaware of their compulsions.
I guess that's what a lot of introspection does.