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.

Mirri assuming you are real how would you make that selection though. And one person's attractive is anothers ugly

MirriVan - as someone recently bereaved by suicide, allow me to tell you unless you have been likewise bereaved you don't know a bloody thing about it and idealising it as the ultimate rational act of considered courage rather than a desperate, lonely and horrific tragedy and waste frankly shows you are approaching this whole discussion from a position of embarrassingly naive faux-intellectualism that has nothing to do with reality. Your thought experiment that allows you to feel superior is just another justification for your personal, subjective choices, the same as the motivations to become parents sneered at here, it's just you try to generalise it as if you are part of an enlightened elite, as opposed to just one subjective individual making your own person choices for your own personal reasons. You have no superior insight. And neither do you have any superior and compassionate desire to prevent the suffering of others; if you did, and had the confidence of your professed convictions that anti-natalism was the right course of action to reduce suffering, you would find a way to promote/further it that might actually work, instead of posturing about with your passive-agressive, patronising "poor dumb beasts, you know not what you do" drivel - anyone can see this will only get people's backs up and drive them away from even considering your core points, but there's no thrilling little ego kick in this for you without putting others down is there?

I brought it up because that is the logical consequence of the argument you are propounding. At least own it. And I think it is a reductive, negative and ignorant view of the human condition assumed in the main to allow the proponent to feel smug. So I'm challenging it. Because people who are low don't need to be told their life is nothing but suffering and they'd be better off not having existed. Because people who have children don't need to be told they are basically depraved beasts of the field for having done so. Not least because I don't see what putting this view forward is supposed to achieve other than the opportunity to sneer, as even by your own lights it isn't going to stop those of us without your "insight" continuing to breed.

And thank you for your sympathy. But really that isn't the point. I am viscerally offended by your point of view that my mother did the right thing, not just for her personally but from the moral, objective perspective, to kill herself. Just as I am by your suggestion my daughter should not exist and that I was cruel and unthinking to make her. Your words have an effect. Telling people their lives are worth nothing has an effect.

The world would not gain from having more of me.

That’s an incredibly sad statement.

My husband and I are both Aspies. I also have chronic depression and chronic anxiety which I take meds for. Because of this, my DH and I chose not to have children. This was the best decision we could have ever made! We do everything together. Go on holidays, or just sit in bed all days eating pizza and playing video games. I also volunteer. You can have a meaningful and happy life without children. Not to mention, I get to spoil the heck out of my nieces and nephews! Seeing their lit up, shiny faces on Christmas when they received the presents we gave them was priceless!

It’s late and I’m tired but I just want to placemark for tomorrow as I find this a hugely fascinating subject.

Unde no interpretation did u say you should kill yourself. I pointed out that is the only rational response to your purported world view, and you hadn't, and wouldn't, which mean either you don't really believe it or the theory is functionally pointless in the real world. That is about as far from "kill yourself" as my statement could be.

Andi also believe in assisted dying - if my mother had had access to it and had wanted it I would have supported her, however much pain it would have caused me - the fact she had no way out in a safe, dignified environment is a total failure of society and had resulted in bed end being lonely and grim, and the traumatization of the poor friend who found her. Don't presume to know my views on life and death. But the idea suicide was a better option than, say, her having counselling, a citizen's income, prompt and thorough treatment for her myriad health problems that made her life unbearable to her, just because it was less resource-intensive for her to off herself, is... Well at best it's defeatist and fatalistic, at worst it's callous and sees humans as nothing but units of consumption.

I've been thinking a bit more about this on he way to work trying to get a handle on your world view. I got to thinking about the recent Attenborough documentary Dynasties, particularly the episode about penguins in the Arctic - who it seems spend their lives huddled together and submitting themselves to unspeakable hardships purely in order to produce offspring they deliver into this barren, cry environment to huddle together submitting themselves to unspeakable hardships etc and infinitum. As I watched it I nearly cried a couple of times at how utterly horrific and brutal their lives seemed to be, and wondered if there was any intrinsic value to their existence that made all that suffering worthwhile in any way. Wouldn't they be better off, I thought, just to lie down in the ice, or at very least roll their eggs into the sea and avoid inflicting this on their offspring?

Is this broadly in line with your view of the human condition?

Or other ask a different but related question, is your anti-natalism restricted to humans or do you think it applies to all sentient life?

Sorry for all the typos, on phone and walking!

The reason to have one or two children is because you feel a desire to have them, we do need young people to take over the jobs we vacate. Having lots of children can be argued to be very irresponsible but replacement or less is fine imho. Of course adopting/fostering is an amazing thing to do as it gives young people another chance, but not everyone can do this. As for overseas, they need to control their population growth rather than exporting citizens (whilst some have the skills we need most do not and we only have so many entry level jobs)

I wanted children for purely selfish reasons, as most humans do. Had an utterly shit, very very lonely childhood without a single happy memory. Just wanted to be able to feel true, honest, innocent love and happiness. It's been hell, and I'm under no illusions that it'll ever be a cakewalk, but my children have given me peace. It's not for everyone, but for me this is why.

What an odd thread....i think most people have kids because of the huge biological urge to propogate themselves. Selfish gene and all that.
Worrying about automation was not a consideration for me at all.

Dimsum that chimes with me - having my daughter has allowed me to feel love like I never had any opportunity to do in the rest of my life - pure, unafraid, total and so healing. I'm under no illusions that my love will be enough to make her happy forever, but for now it does, and my life really WOULD have been worth less to me if I hadn't experienced loving and being loved this way.

Is it your view MirriVan, that if a life is unhappy it's not worth living?

I had children because I wanted to experience and create love, which I think is what is missing from a lot of the posts on here. Perhaps because of unhappy childhoods. I also think that that is the entire reason for humans, the world itself would be better off without our species, but I feel our species is special and worth perpetuating and fighting for. There is suffering in the world and my children might suffer, but I might suffer as well, the possibility of experiencing some bad things in life does not make life not worth living.

I also don't agree with the environment argument. In western society the population is not even being replaced. My children will help to look after an aging population through their work and taxes. They will have the benefit of a good education and are more likely to do good in the world than not. Overpopulation is a worldwide problem and me having children on a micro level is more likely to be beneficial. That is a decision for each person to take themselves.

Yeah, when I was deciding whether to have kids I thought "Better not, I'm not fit enough and I only got a C in my maths GCSE"

@MirriVan could you share anything about yourself to help us understand how you reached this conclusion about life?

Also are you and op the same person?

I had children because I wanted to experience and create love, which I think is what is missing from a lot of the posts on here.

Do you really think people without children can never experience love? What a strange attitude. I post as someone who wanted children but could not have them. I do not think my life is a loveless pile of shit as a result.

I've increasingly been feeling recently that I would not want to bring children into the world as it is, much as I wanted to when I was younger.

Pieceofpurplesky I can confirm I’m not MirriVan. I’m reqlly enjoying reading the responses and they are helping to form my perspective.

I don’t think I agree entirely with MirriVan’s ideology. I sometimes think the planet would do better without us (that is humans) but at the same time I care so much about people and I just want things to be better. I believe we can do it one thought at a time. I don’t want people to cease to exist because there is pain but to think carefully about the best choices in their positions.

Thank you everyone for your responses so far (even those annoyed by the thread) and I’m thankful to mumsnet for not pulling this.