To think anyone TTC now is mad?

[absolutelybloodyanonymous]

Given the GDP fall-economy disaster, rising unemployment, coronavirus, does it seem bloody mad to be TTC now?

I’ve got mates and family who are TTC or already upduffed and it seems absolutely mad to me. Why does RIGHT NOW feel like a good time to TTC? AIBU?

(Nc for this!)

[quote Moomin12345]@TheMarshGirl sure, educating yourself is great and I'm all for making informed decisions. But the decisive factor often is the pure selfish desire to have a baby /family/mini me /someone to celebrate Christmas with. I'm not whinging, raise your kids to be resilient - power to them. But let's not pretend that having kids is some sort of deep analytical process for most people . Some people time it and plan it, others just have one glass of wine too many and end up with a souvenir 9 months later [/quote]
Oh no, I completely agree with your latest post @Moomin12345.

But, what I'm saying is that it doesn't have to be, and for me, shouldn't be, purely a biological urge / no thought to it at all. Because we have more choice now, we need to exercise that choice with a greater degree of responsibility.

I do think that happens now. Maybe not as much as it should, but certainly more than in the 50s or something when it was case of have babies or you're a failure and get as many out as possible. I'm hopeful that younger generations will be more responsible than the "oh yeah I had my babies ten years ago, but NOW, CATASTROPHE, there's climate change and stuff so wail, moan, I shouldn't have had them at all". So pointless and how is that helping anyone? Bit late now isn't it? There are things these people could do to be more proactive, but they have opted for the wail moan woe is me and now nobody else should have babies approach, which is just bonkers.

There will always be moaners around every generation has challenges, the world wars, the cold war/potential nuclear apocalypse, Vietnam war, diseases, terrorism, dying industries, inequality, ridiculous property prices, working till you drop. Having kids is ultimately an act of faith, sometimes blind faith.

Er, I'm pregnant, intended second and last pregnancy - I'm not mad.

• My job is secure, as is husbands, we'll be grand on that front
• I'm mid-late 30s, I couldn't hang about and have no interest in being any older than I need to be when having this one
• I have had a totally normal low risk pregnancy, no reason to suppose anything different this time
• It's my second baby - I know what I'm doing this time

My risk assessment was based on us and our situation, I might have made a different decision had our situation been different. All a case of the individual's personal circumstances imo.

True moomin, but to say that you had no idea climate change might be A Bad Thing, ten years ago? That isnt blind faith, that is willful ignorance, which the poster admitted to tbf. That is not fair on her dcs at all and she has no right to now be stalking round MN, telling people they aren't allowed to have children at all, because she didn't think it through.

It's a big responsibility at any time. You do not get to wash your hands of that responsibility by saying "I regret it and think nobody should have children at all now and think they're jolly selfish if they do".

Yes...I am mad but I'm also 38 and if I wait until the world is in a better place I risk finding out that I've left it too late.

I didn't see the comment saying that someone regrets kids because they've found out about climate change. Yes, that sounds daft, but some people still question it - the world isn't exactly filled with environmentally aware geniuses. I guess anyone is free to regret their decisions for personal reasons. I'm really only baffled by people who have kids despite having really serious hereditary illnesses in the family like Huntington's. That is pure selfishness.

I'm deliberately pregnant right now and I'm not sorry. Second child too, oh the shame. and I'm 35 so not even on my last fertile legs as it were.

I know I will be an excellent mother to this child. I know I will look after it, love it and offer it every opportunity. Right now at this moment people are having babies who will grow up knowing nothing but pain and violence and neglect. When society takes a stand and prevents these people having/keeping the children they create, I'll start second-guessing my right to create well-loved, cared-for, well-educated children. Until then I'll do what I think is right for me and my family reproductively, whenever I think it is right, and the death-cult antinatalists are welcome to remove themselves from the population problem if they're all that concerned about where the world is going.

Honestly, if I’d been as aware of climate change etc as I am now at the time, I’d never have started a family. Mine are nearly 12 and 6, so I certainly should have been more aware by the time I had the second, but I was a bit blinkered by thinking I needed to give dd a sibling.

Of course now I’ve got them I wouldn’t change that for the world, but the way the world is going now I feel very bad about bringing children into it.

(Nearly 12, and 6.5)

TheMarshGirl I see you’ve addressed this, but I admit I should have been more aware. Also I’m not judging anyone else, I’m just speaking for myself.

@Moomin12345

I didn't see the comment saying that someone regrets kids because they've found out about climate change. Yes, that sounds daft, but some people still question it - the world isn't exactly filled with environmentally aware geniuses. I guess anyone is free to regret their decisions for personal reasons. I'm really only baffled by people who have kids despite having really serious hereditary illnesses in the family like Huntington's. That is pure selfishness.

Free to regret their choices... yes, ok, but to then go around, apparently on multiple threads, telling people not to have children - I actually haven't searched so haven't seen any of her other posts. Not because of her personal regret, but because she now thinks it is wrong to have children at all.

I also think there is a tendency at the moment for parents who want to appear environmentally aware, to come out with "if I knew what I know now, I'd never have had them". It's a get out of jail free card for people who have already had their families. That would be fine, if a little disingenuous and maybe unfair on the dcs if they ever overheard, but this poster goes further and came in here in support of the op who calls people TTC at the moment "mad" and also voiced her support for a poster who seems to pop up on many threads, some of which are on the conception board, telling people they are selfish and insane for TTC.

This seems incredibly hypocritical, considering she has to children who were born around ten years ago; hardly as if nobody knew about climate change then. In fact, I remember being told in 2008 not to plan to ever have children, because "things are going to get really bad in the next ten years and in the UK it will be like living in pre-Edwardian times". So, I don't buy the whole wide eyed "I never knew, but NOW I know. Now that it's someone else who wants to have a baby and not me".

@Stannisbaratheonsboxofmatches

TheMarshGirl I see you’ve addressed this, but I admit I should have been more aware. Also I’m not judging anyone else, I’m just speaking for myself.

Yep! I've said a lot on this, so won't repeat myself, for everyone's sake . Feel free to look back over my amazing words of wisdom...ehem.

This seems incredibly hypocritical, considering she has to children who were born around ten years ago; hardly as if nobody knew about climate change then.

I agree wholeheartedly with every word you’ve written on this thread, but to bolster your point I’d add :

• As you’ve said, climate change was very much a concern 10 years ago
• if I remember correctly, we were at the tail end of the worst recession in this country since the end of the war
• we voted in a government with a serious austerity agenda, with a focus on cutting welfare, health and education budgets
• that election resulted in a hung parliament so we had an unstable government
• the sovereign debt crisis across the Eurozone was at its peak
• in 2011 we had the worst civil unrest seen in this country for more than a generation.

@Stannisbaratheonsboxofmatches
How convenient for you to have learnt all this after having two children

It's personal circs. I'm 30. Not ttc now but can't delay all that much longer, really, unless my life takes a lurch. I'm ok atm and I know I'd regret not trying more than waiting it out if it goes on a lot longer.

Being broke, alone, miserable, trapped in a crap job with no work life balance, being in grotty house shares and in shit shape seemed much bigger, impactful, serious reasons to hold off at the time, they just didn't coincide with Covid.

It all boils down to doing whatever a woman feels like 'reproductively'. It supports my point that people will rationalise ANY circumstances if they want to reproduce, and I don't have a problem with that because they're not my babies and I don't have to worry about them growing up in a war zone or other hostile circumstances. It's your body, your baby/human, your choice. The planet is probably doomed, but I don't think it's gonna blow up completely in the next 100 years, so all your future children will most likely die of different (hopefully natural) causes,not extreme heat or pollution.

@Moomin12345

It all boils down to doing whatever a woman feels like 'reproductively'. It supports my point that people will rationalise ANY circumstances if they want to reproduce, and I don't have a problem with that because they're not my babies and I don't have to worry about them growing up in a war zone or other hostile circumstances. It's your body, your baby/human, your choice. The planet is probably doomed, but I don't think it's gonna blow up completely in the next 100 years, so all your future children will most likely die of different (hopefully natural) causes,not extreme heat or pollution.

Scared to reply, as don't want to open up the whole thread again, but....

Generally speaking, I agree with you here and people will rationalise their choices, whatever they may be. This is why you sometimes see parents calling childfree people selfish and vice versa. People tend to make their choice, based on what they actually want and then find evidence to prove they are right. This is why I was laughing up thread when people were saying how they chose not to have children for the greater good. I would say the people who genuinely would love nothing more than to have children, but sacrifice that for the greater good are more or less non existent. It's always the same people who go round this PARENTING site, telling other people not to have children for the sake of the planet, who also go around saying how shit being a parent looks. Not a sacrifice then really. And, as I've already said, antinatalism as an ideology has been around since at least the ancient Greeks. It isn't that people have just now seen the horrors of climate change and thought people should no longer have children. This is an ideology of its own. People hold this ideology, for whatever reason. It may be philosophical or political, or it may be psychological or emotional, and climate change is just one of the ways they rationalise it.

Then we had the posters who conveniently had their dcs and only then realised that it was bad for the planet. Again, they made their choice and now are looking for reasons why it was ok for them but not for anyone else. These have to be the worst. At least the "death cult antinatalists", to borrow a pp's phrase, aren't total hypocrites.

I also agree with your predictions for the future of the planet. I think that is a good guess.

If anyone ever calls anyone else selfish for their choice to have any children at all, or indeed when those strange parents say childfree people are selfish , I will remember your argument here moomin, because I think you're right and it's actually what other pps and I have alluded to a few times on the thread; everyone makes their choice for selfish reasons, then they seek to rationalise. That includes the "I'm childfree by choice, by choice yeah?" lot. The difference being, this is a parenting site, so not entirely sure what they get out of trawling (or should that be trolling ?) the site, screeching at parents, including those on the conception board, who often are struggling with infertility, that they are selfish and evil for TTC.

Again, the last man IRL who told me that having children was selfish and so bad for the planet, went on to have three rounds of IVF to have his first baby recently. So shut your noise buddy! (Him, and certain others, not you moomin).

This is why I was laughing up thread when people were saying how they chose not to have children for the greater good.

I find it ridiculous myself too. You don't need to justify the choices you make. It's entirely up to you what decisions you make.

I find as an adoptive parent I get it the other way around. People think I'm a wonderful, altruistic person because I adopted, as they couldn't imagine doing it themselves. Whereas the truth is that if I hadn't been infertile I wouldn't have considered adopting. I just wanted a child.

Now I'm very happy that we adopted my DDs. But I didn't do it for altruistic reasons at all.

That's an interesting point mittens.

I know some couples with adopted children. Some with infertility, who chose not to do any (more) treatment. Also a male, gay couple, who thought that surrogacy would have actually been harder for them than adoption. A lesbian couple who tried a few times with donor sperm, but didn't have any luck, so are now trying to adopt. I know a couple who had one bio dc, (if that is the correct term?) and then had secondary infertility, then went on to adopt, and one who had two biological children already. She then fostered a baby who had been removed from her parents due to drug addiction, (the baby was born addicted and had some developmental delays). She was only meant to foster her, but she just totally fell in love with her and she and her DP ended up adopting her.

There are many reasons people choose to have children, and choose how they will achieve that goal. It is rarely, IME, purely sacrifice for the sake of the planet.

But it makes a good story, for some, where they get to paint themselves as heroes and sometimes feel it gives them the leverage to dictate to other people what they should do with their uterus(es?) Uterisi?? Whatever.

Uteri?

I looked it up and it actually is uteri! Every day's a school day .

I think it is actually important for thoughtful, educated, compassionate and environmentally aware people to have a kid or two (replacement level), because they will more likely to also raise thoughtful children. Our kids will be raised vegan, with an emphasis on being responsible for what they consume and looking after their eco-system and our wildlife. No guarantees but probably better values to pass down than the consumerist instagrammers churning out designer clad kids taught entirely different values.
(although admittedly either might rebel!)

I think it is actually important for thoughtful, educated, compassionate and environmentally aware people to have a kid or two (replacement level), because they will more likely to also raise thoughtful children. Our kids will be raised vegan, with an emphasis on being responsible for what they consume and looking after their eco-system and our wildlife. No guarantees but probably better values to pass down than the consumerist instagrammers churning out designer clad kids taught entirely different values.
(although admittedly either might rebel!)

Jesus. Maybe we could just sterilise everyone who thinks differently to you, or didn't have access to a good education, and be done with it? Quicker, no?

Overreaction much! Never mentioned sterilisation once.

You can be educated and from any type of background! I grew up in the economic underclass (single parent family, benefits, vulnerable parent) but I still care what is going on in my community and the world around me - that is what I mean by educated! You can go to Eton and Cambridge and still know nothing beyond your own pleasure and consumption and care less about people and the world. You can be illiterate but still understand the importance of community and taking care of our world. That is what I mean by educated. Maybe I used the wrong term, but I mean people who care about things.