The right reasons to have children?

[livupq]

If the world is as overpopulated as people say do you think you have to have more extrinsic reasons for having children? More and more jobs will be become automated and the jobs we need require more and more expertise and intelligence. On the parenting side it is increasingly important to have parents that value education and understand child development who can provide a loving and nurturing home to children. Having all these traits and the money and time to do that isn’t possible for everyone.

If you were not particularly special - not very pretty or intelligent or with special talents is there a reason to have children? Understandably most people want them but should we put that behind us as selfish desires? Naturally things won’t always go to plan and even if you are smart or pretty your children may not be. Even if you could support them and provide for them emotionally and physically you could lose your job... but that seems different than trying to do the right thing in the first place. Right now it feels like having children is the natural state no matter what your circumstances even though we are supposedly enlightened.

Just interested in others thoughts.

Why is pretty a useful skill OP? Is it because it makes you a better con-artist or more easy to exploit?

And even if you are intelligent, your child could be as thick as two planks and lazy.

People treat beautiful people better sadly.
Agree on the second point.
I just wonder if there is a point in me having children - they’d probably just be more people with my bad traits in the world.

I had many reasons for not having children - the fact that I'm not particularly special or attractive was certainly a factor. The world would not gain from having more of me.

Well if only people with the ‘right traits’ had children that would be eugenics.

If the world is as overpopulated as people say
This is a scientific fact, not something people are saying.

and the jobs we need require more and more expertise and intelligence.

The jobs more required will be those less likely to be performed by a machine, not necessarily those that require more expertise and intelligence

On the parenting side it is increasingly important to have parents that value education and understand child development who can provide a loving and nurturing home to children. Having all these traits and the money and time to do that isn’t possible for everyone.
Providing a loving and nurturing home doesn't require an understanding of child development. I say as a professional child educator and a mum.

If you were not particularly special - not very pretty or intelligent or with special talents is there a reason to have children?

You have completely lost me here

Naturally things won’t always go to plan and even if you are smart or pretty your children may not be.
I am so confused about why you think the value of a person is about being "pretty" or "smart"

I am so lost now

Even if you could support them and provide for them emotionally and physically you could lose your job...

Which has never happened to a pretty person

Right now it feels like having children is the natural state no matter what your circumstances even though we are supposedly enlightened.

I don't think you are particularly enlightened, no.

I am really unsure why on earth bekng pretty will equate to having brains?

I understand the point you are trying to make (i think) but i feel it quite elitest.

My parents had four children, we grow up in poverty, i dont mean we didnt get nike air max poverty, i mean some nights we didnt eat. Most nights my parents didnt.
They weren't successful job wise, their education didnt merit a single certificate. Also to be frank the home wasnt always a happy place. What they did was have four kids and subsequently they bacame a Dr, a civil servant, a software developer and one who owns their own business. All in all four people you might deem worthy to have children?

Unfortunately having jobs as listed above comes at a price. The Dr is never at school plays, often not home at bedtime. Relatively not around, but their job is secure and they provide financial support. Should they have had a kid?

What i am trying to highlight is being successful, being pretty, being top of your game does not always make a good parent. Society and circumstance do not dictate who should parent, the person does.

@ScreamingValenta - the wonder of humans is that you mix your genes with someone else and you don't know what you will get. So your genetic off-spring could have a special skill and take the better traits from both of you.

ScreamingValenta
I had many reasons for not having children - the fact that I'm not particularly special or attractive was certainly a factor. The world would not gain from having more of me.

This is what I wonder too.

And on eugenics - obviously deciding who should and shouldn’t have children and be alive is the problem when it decided by others. However is it bad if people self select? If they decide not to pass there genes on.

You've tried all the other pets and it's either buy a monkey or have a baby

Im completely selfish. I did not consider the benefits to the wider world when choosing to have my kids. I wanted them so I had them. I have 2 but Ive been pregnant 3 times. Each time, the desire for a child was almost primal. I couldnt think about anything else. My girls may not win any nobel prizes, they will most likely be completely ordinary. But, to me and my family, they are everything. The benefit they bring to human existence can not be measured by the benefits to the population en masse. It is the tiny things they do that impact, as with most of us.

LokiBear I really like your post and I’m guessing that’s what most people think if they even question why they have children at all.

Maybe there is just a divide between those that think it is a choice and those that just follow their biology?

If you were not particularly special - not very pretty or intelligent or with special talents is there a reason to have children?

Ah, so THAT'S the reason that I didn't have children I'm pretty smart —most of the time But pretty? No, no, no. Perhaps I would have been entitled to have had just one?

So have all the amazing, life changing, pioneering, groundbreaking people that have ever existed had beautiful intelligent successful and rich parents?

What about the need for builders, plumbers, farm labourers, hairdressers, etc? Do they need to be smart and pretty?
You haven't mentioned the huge issue of climate change. The world is, very quickly, becoming a much more difficult place to live. Every child we have, particularly in the developed world, will contribute to that. And they will suffer from the consequences of climate change. And all the other crap that is happening in the world.
So I make sure that my daughters know that I think that their having children would be a bad idea - not fair on the children. That it is of course their decision, but that they owe it to any future children to think very carefully about having a baby. I talk about the option of adopting.

OP, why are concerned about it? What is it that made you ask this question?

The urge to mate and reproduce is as strong and as natural as the need to eat sleep drink move be around others.

It’s just human.

The logic about environmentalism is never going to overrule that for the majority.

The urge to mate and reproduce is as strong and as natural as the need to eat sleep drink move be around others.

It can't be, otherwise everyone would have, or would try to have children.

It’s an interesting question

I don’t the the world is over populated - I think some countries are.

When this gets great disease with spread and whipe loads out - as it has in the past

Some cultures breed younger than others and have more children - you could say that reliegion is to blame for too many people?

Interesting question but individually we have to decide for ourselves

Fatasfook there are always exceptions but exceptions don’t make the norm. Children living in poverty have lower outcomes than those who do not. Intelligence is in part inherited. Developing a good work ethic is key for success. I don’t think parents need every good quality but if they are smart or financially successful or good at parenting their children have a clear advantage.

tonsilss It depends on the skill required to do those jobs and the demand. Perhaps robots could do many of those jobs in the future or at least a bigger part of them. If the majority of the population is highly intelligent they’d probably find a solution. But more importantly they may care about big issues like climate change allowing there to be sensible discourse and actual action to make things better.

Well I tried to hint at it. That is the biggest unspoken part of my question. Future generations have to deal with climate change so if you produce a child don’t you feel you have an obligation to ensure they’ll be well equipped to handle it?

I’m not sure about you dissuading your daughters... if they were raised to be smart and considerate about these issues they’d likely raise children who are too and it might counteract people who just do things just because.

It can't be, otherwise everyone would have, or would try to have children

But 99% of people have sex or want to have sex and on a primal level sex = reproduction.

The world is overpopulated and the environmental impact of more humans is definitely significant in a negative way. I did think about this before becoming pregnant. I also worry about what kind of world I am bringing my little girl into but for DH and I it was a considered decision as something we wanted as a couple.

Well if only people with the ‘right traits’ had children that would be eugenics.

What's wrong with eugenics? The only reason I ever see given is that some dodgy people were associated with it in the past, which is not an intrinsic fault?

If it were true that Mussolini made the trains run on time, it wouldn't follow that making trains run on time is a bad idea.

But 99% of people have sex or want to have sex and on a primal level sex = reproduction

In evolutionary terms, sex is presumably pleasurable to encourage reproduction, but I think it's stretching it to say the urge to have sex = the urge to reproduce. Most people learn to masturbate long before they have sexual intercourse and many people's sexual urges are driven by people of the same sex.

Maybe there is just a divide between those that think it is a choice and those that just follow their biology?

Of course it's a choice if you live in a society where as a woman you have control of your own fertility. And I don't 'follow my biology' in any other way, so why would I do it when it comes to a huge decision like having a child? However, I think your eugenicist approach, slightly veiled under climate change concerns, is unpleasantly elitist -- only those with good genes should even consider passing them on?

My parents were barely-literate school leavers, both from deprived, socially dysfunctional backgrounds, living in poverty when they had me and my three siblings. Fortunately for the four of us, they lived in a society where contraception was difficult to legally access, and their religion essentially forced reproduction upon them, or by your scheme four highly-educated, thoughtful adults and their children would not exist at all.