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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that having children is not a "lifestyle choice"

437 replies

YorkshireTeaGold · 21/01/2015 12:19

Sooo, saw a thread on aibu where the op complained about childcare costs and was told by another poster that she shouldn't complain as having kids was a lifestyle choice.

I've heard this so many times recently, both on mn and in rl and it massively pisses me off! My father actually told me not to complain about morning sickness as I wanted children.

I have 2 dcs and think that this is just maintaining the equilibrium of the world. Reproduction is a biological need, like eating or survival, it's not like taking up golf or buying a yacht. I can see maybe having no kids could be a lifestyle choice for some, as could having 9. But a couple? Not a lifestyle choice.

Plus it hides a political issue in that it's really difficult to afford to bring up children atm. I did a online check (think it was in the guardian) and dh and I are 75th centile for earnings. However 1/3 of this goes on the mortgage, 1/3 on childcare and 1/3 to barely cover the bills. It's ridiculous that this is the case, and if only people who truely afforded it had kids then it'd just be an elite minority reproducing. The government should organise the country so an average family can afford to buy a house and work.

OP posts:
GatoradeMeBitch · 22/01/2015 18:59

It IS a lifestyle choice. The world is over-populated with humans, we don't need so many more people. We're luxury items these days! Grin

SoonToBeSix · 22/01/2015 19:02

No the world is not overpopulated that's a myth.

HairyOrk · 22/01/2015 19:06

SoontobeSix - can you back that up with evidence? I'm curious :)

bigbluestars · 22/01/2015 19:07

Aye right-population growth is the single biggest threat to the survival of our species,

GatoradeMeBitch · 22/01/2015 19:07

Over-populated may be the wrong term, but we're certainly very plentiful aren't we? When I was at school 20 years ago we were taught that there were about 6 billion people on earth. Now there are over 7 billion. I expect it won't take another 20 years to reach 8 billion. At some point there could be a real over-population problem, but under-population of humans will never be a problem.

SacredHeart · 22/01/2015 19:10

There is no hard and fast proof we are over populated just theories.

Malthusians will claim there is not enough to go around but in reality unequal distribution and individual western consumption is a much larger problem then actual population numbers

wonderstuff · 22/01/2015 19:48

I felt an urge, a need to have my first child, I'd had a mc and my first dc healed a hurt. My second was unplanned, but welcomed. There won't be another. I think that children are a choice, and trying to conceive and raise a family I think should be a right. Children are needed, it makes me die that people are simulatiously anti-family and anti-immigration, we need one or the other. The earth is over-populated, but the population isn't evenly spread, the ethical thing to do is to educate women and provide contraceptive choice, this would reduce birth rates in a generation.

HesterShaw · 23/01/2015 12:17

There is no hard and fast proof we are over populated just theories.

What absolute utter total codswollop.

SacredHeart · 23/01/2015 12:24

Hester feel free to cite it...I'm sure many economists, politicians, sociologist, environmentalists et al are desperate to see this

Original poster
YorkshireTeaGold · 23/01/2015 12:54

I guess it comes down to how you define "lifestyle choice", clearly we have choices and can (to a degree) decide if and when we have a baby. Mine were both planned with military precision.

What I meant was, they're not an affectation or a hobby. They're not a car or a job.... They're people and we need to reproduce to survive as a species. Perhaps people in the developing world have too many children but my genes (fat thighe'd and eczema'd as they are) aren't too fussed about that. Just as people don't decide to have children due to population concerns, nor do people choose not to have then for these reasons. Anyway, an aging population is far more of a problem then the birthrate but no one suggests we kill them off.

OP posts:
squoosh · 23/01/2015 12:57

'an aging population is far more of a problem then the birthrate but no one suggests we kill them off.'

I'm sure a member of UKIP will at some stage.

angelos02 · 23/01/2015 13:23

I have never ever heard anyone say that overpopulation is a myth.

In 1927 the world population was 2 billion. By 2024, it will be 8 billion.

A planet with limited habitable land with limited resources.

Soontobe6 What could possibly go wrong? Hmm

HesterShaw · 23/01/2015 15:31

Were you talking to me then SacredHeart? You surely can't believe that overpopulation is "just a theory"?

HesterShaw · 23/01/2015 15:33

Every single environmental problem we have can be put down to too many people all wanting to be clothed, fed and watered. Pollution, overfishing, habitat destruction....

I can't believe there are people out there who cannot understand this.

Go away and educate yourselves.

SacredHeart · 23/01/2015 15:47

As I said before unequal distribution of resources and western waste has a far greater impact on the global landscape than actual head count.

If we all lived as they do in Costa Rica (head of the Happyplanet index) then the population of the UK and the world wouldn't be an issue. My parents grew up in houses with two or three families living in it - now we worry our chihuahua doesn't have an ensuite.

As I said before since Malthus people have been concerned and blamed population for the ills of the world. Population is an issue but in reality our capitalist lifestyle whispering "we're worth it" and making us buy more, want more, need more and of course use and waste more is a much larger issue.

HesterShaw · 23/01/2015 15:50

No one is denying that is a problem. I completely agree with you that our current lifestyles are unsustainable.

I have just attended an coastal futures conference. Every single problem came back to the same old question - too many people chasing too few resources.

Bowlersarm · 23/01/2015 15:52

Would it be beneficial to Planet Earth to have no people on it at all? Or is there something good about us?

angelos02 · 23/01/2015 15:54

It really isn't complicated...imagine a small room with a certain amount of food on the table and more and more people keep walking in...people get less and less until all hell breaks loose as there is nothing left.

bigbluestars · 23/01/2015 15:55

But that's just rubbish sacredheart. Are you saying there could be an infinite number of people living on this planet and it would be fine if we all lived like the Costa Ricans?

So having 3000 billion people on the planet would be fine- because we could all bunk up together?

Even Costa Ricans want their share of Western trappings, as China and India start to buy cars, laptops and air con units then that low carbon footprint ( which still impacts) turn into a far bigger one.

You are living in cuckoo land.

ElectraInExcelsis · 23/01/2015 15:56

YANBU - with people living longer and longer, there would surely be a much bigger strain on public services if older people had no children to take care of them.

Families are necessary. They depend on each other.

SacredHeart · 23/01/2015 15:57

For a western standard of life, yes.

But would you agree that it is simplistic, as some have on this thread, to lay the issues on the developing world where children are a necessity instead of focussing on avoiding 7.2 million tonnes of food waste thrown out of UK homes. Or reducing beef consumption to reduce the degradation of the Amazon?

HesterShaw · 23/01/2015 16:13

However people are not going to want to stop their western standards of life, not matter who sorted the Costa Ricans are. Are they? And as countries "develop" billions more want their cut of it too. Let's be realistic.

SacredHeart · 23/01/2015 16:24

I do know what your saying but modern "realism" just seems like defeatism and convenience - this is how it is and it won't change.

I truly believe that if, as individuals, we commit to living a more sustainable and less wasteful life then change is possible.

This in turn allows development in other countries to be far more sustainable and ethical and with development the birth rate will naturally decrease.

shovetheholly · 23/01/2015 16:33

"Why are housing / land costs so high? ..... yes you guessed it, because there are TOO MANY PEOPLE on our little island and everyone wants a nice house"

I think it's a bit more complicated than overpopulation, though of course that's a factor. Surprisingly, there is actually NOT a shortage of land for new development - there are a lot of sites that have been freed up by planning for development, enough for nearly half a million houses in fact! But there is an element of greed in there: house builders only want to work for a big ole profit.

Guiltismymaster · 23/01/2015 16:41

RE overpopulation. APPARENTLY (sorry I can't remember who said this but it was radio 4 and therefore must be true ;)) in order to stabilize the world's population, the rate of reproduction only needs to go down by point something of a child per family if that makes sense. If we all stopped producing immediately as some have suggested this would not help the planet, it would be a disaster (and quite depressing?)

The choice of phrase 'lifestyle choice' suggests you've made a frivolous or unusual choice and I feel sometimes like I'm being punished by this 'well you should have thought about that before you were irresponsible enough to have a child, you idiot' attitude. Other countries aren't so anti parent and don't try to blame all their woes on parents... especially those darn mothers. It is so hard here just to go to work. That's not right.