Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

To worry about bringing a child into this sometimes awful world.

27 replies

PartyFops · 15/02/2013 15:32

Sorry in advance about this post, it may be a little deep but I was thinking whether this plays on anyone elses mind too.

I really worry that maybe my selfishness of wanting a child ( I have a dd) has meant that a child has come into this world where there are so many horrible things going on. I live in a bit of a bubble in a sleepy village where nothing really happens and am really grateful for that. But I worry that she will have to face the big cruel world and so will her children and childrens children in the future.

I can't help but think that life in Britain (and probably many countries) will get harder and harder with rising crime rates, over population etc.

Does it bother anyone else?, or am I just a little depressed and in need of some sunshine?

Come on Ye Nest of Vipers, I would love for you to convince me otherwise!

OP posts:

LaurieFairyCake · 15/02/2013 15:35

Living is lovely considering the alternative. Sure, there will be some hardship but mostly life in Britain is good.

Yes, get out as much as you can and try not to worry

Tryharder · 15/02/2013 15:35

YABU.

I think life in the UK is better in many ways than before and worse in others. Your future child may well also have something significant to contribute.

DonkeysDontRideBicycles · 15/02/2013 15:36

Dip into history and there are wars, plague, poverty and misfortune.
And lots of good things to balance those out.

Do your best to instil certain values in DD, encourage her personal growth, wave goodbye when she leaves home as a young adult and let her choose her own path.

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 15/02/2013 15:36

YABU to call MN a nest of vipers when you are asking for advice and opinions.

However I worry about the same thing all the time. You are far from alone there. I have been TTC for three years and often stop to think, do I really want this? I envision a world of lawlessness, climate chaos, selfishness, stupidity, vacuousness, hardship, people fighting over resources, resistance against antibiotics yada yada yada.

And then come to the conclusion that the world needs nice people, and any child DH and I end up producing will be so fucking awesome that we'll be doing the world a favour

Well, you know what I mean....

slambang · 15/02/2013 15:37

But maybe the child you bring into the world will be one to change the world for the better.

natwebb79 · 15/02/2013 15:38

I think every generation has felt that 'the world's getting worse'. I personally would rather be alive now than during WW2 or the Victorian times, for example! So YABU.

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 15/02/2013 15:42

I was born on the same day as the fall of Saigon.

Imagine how the people who were about to give birth during the time of the worst days of the Cold War felt? The Cuban Missile crisis when it seemed WWIII was about to start.

However, I think it is different now in that we have over population, depletion of resources and pollution to worry about, and previous generations didn't so much.

TheCatInTheHairnet · 15/02/2013 15:42

I watched the twin towers fall, holding my tiny baby, crying and wondering wtf kind of world I'd brought him into.

But, the truth is, most people are good, decent people just trying to make their way in the world. And that's good enough for me.

AMumInScotland · 15/02/2013 15:46

I think all parents take a look at the world and worry about having brought their child into it - it's as old as parenting itself! Suddenly you see all the perils and risks and wonder why you thought it was a good idea to bring a new helpless little life into it.

But really, the world today isn't significantly more dangerous or unpleasant than it has been at any other point in history - there was no "golden age" when everyone was safe and happy. Ill health, wars, social strife, have always existed. Pick whatever period you thought was "safe" to bring a child into, and I'm sure we can point out all the perils that a child faced then. Today is no worse than any, and better than most.

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 15/02/2013 15:50

Imagine having a baby in 1347 when the Black Death was killing half of Europe. Orphans being left to starve, crops rotting in the fields, the dead lying unburied.....

It must have seemed as though the world was ending.

elfycat · 15/02/2013 15:50

Years ago an elderly lady asked me how I felt about living in such an awful time.

I replied that I felt very lucky to be alive now. As a woman in the UK I stand a reasonable chance of surviving childbirth and having a child who will survive. I get to vote and follow my own career path. I'm able to escape a bad marriage. If I get ill or injured there are treatments so I'll survive things that would have killed me 100 years ago.

Now I have young daughters I sometimes despair of things in the news, but then remind myself that it's not all bad.

CaffeineAndKeyboards · 15/02/2013 15:52

You were brought into this awful world, so that's most likely what your child has got in store for them. Something similar to your life.

DreamsTurnToGoldDust · 15/02/2013 15:52

When has everything in the world been lovely though? It never has, there has always been trouble or disaster somewhere.

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 15/02/2013 15:52

Yes, I think about it. I'm mostly an optimistic pessimist but now and again I catch myself thinking the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

But on a purely egocentric level, part of the reason I has children was because I believed me and my DH had something good to pass on to them, and for them to pass on to the world. If I am basically not depressed (as I used to be), I truly believe that 8/10 people are decent

TheCat

yes, me too. DS was a couple of weeks off 1, I don't know why the TV was on at that time of day, but I watched the whole thing

fluffyraggies · 15/02/2013 15:52

This has touched a nerve.
YANBU, but don't let it stop you having your family. That would be awful.

I remember when the story about poor little James Bulger emerged, 20 years ago. I had just had my first baby a few days earlier. I sat and cried and cried after seeing the news, i couldn't stop, it was almost a panic attack, not just from sympathy with the parents and sadness for the little boy, but also out of sheer terror of what i had just done .... brought a helpless baby into a world where something as evil and sick as that could happen.

It really shook me. And it took me a while to actually overcome those feelings.

slangbams post sums up the way i got over it. I do my best to keep my children safe and teach them to look after themselves, and try do no harm to others. How else can we go on?

SelfconfessedSpoonyFucker · 15/02/2013 15:58

I think life is pretty darn good in the first world. Not sure why OP thinks it is so awful.

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 15/02/2013 16:00

Maybe she's not just thinking of herself Spoonyfucker.

I think it's called Weltschmerz in German.

RedJeans · 15/02/2013 16:04

Read The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker, great book about how - contrary to popular, pessimistic belief - the world today is actually far far far less violent and dangerous than previous times.

He points out that if you live in Western Europe today you are living in the safest region in the world at the safest time in all of history (based on many measures, mostly crime rates, paleoanthropological research etc). Makes you feel much better about living here!!

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 15/02/2013 16:06

I think a lot of people's concern today about the world being worse than it has ever been is down to the media.

badguider · 15/02/2013 16:08

A child growing up now in the West has probably never had such good prospects for health, longevity and education.

I am concerned about over-population and unsustainable living, and the environment, and for that reason I'm seriously considering making this child (preg now) our only... but I try to make the world a better place in any small way through my work and volunteering and being generally kind to people around me and I hope to bring my child up to do the same.
I personally am feeling very positive about my local community at the moment, I am seeing volunteering and caring everywhere around me right now, even though I despair about the country and world.

amillionyears · 15/02/2013 16:17

I sometimes think that these types of thoughts can depend on how we are feeling at the time.
On a nice sunny [hopefully] spring or summer day, you may feel completely differently.

I was going to say wait a month and see how your feel, but that may mean a Christmas baby..., but then again you may want a Christmas baby?!

ArielThePiraticalMermaid · 15/02/2013 16:21

Big assumption to think she'll conceived immediately

But that's another discussion...

amillionyears · 15/02/2013 16:23

True, sorry.

Original poster

PartyFops · 15/02/2013 16:45

Thank you so much for your messages, it has helped me put things into perspective, (just to clarify, I do already have a child and plan to stick at one), and you are right, My DH and I are both kind, gentle, sensible and educated to hopefully bring up a child that will be able to make the most of what she has around her. And hopefully one day contribute to make it even better.

I really should stop reading the news!!

OP posts:

Original poster

PartyFops · 15/02/2013 16:46

Oh and about the Nest of Vipers comment, tongue was firmly in cheek!

OP posts:

Flip

1 2