Omfg, someone who became a parent a whopping ten years ago is now saying people TTC now are selfish 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️. How very CONVENIENT, that you had babies and only then did climate change become such an issue that you would never have babies. Seriously, have some self awareness of how stupid that sounds.
Look, this conversation comes up on here all the time. Surprisingly frequently for a parenting site, but then, there are the frankly, a little unhinged, posters on here who seem to take great pleasure in stalking round the site, shrieking that the end is nigh and nobody should "choose to breed". I guess it's the modern day equivalent of people standing on street corners announcing that the apocalypse is upon us.
Again, I'm neither pregnant nor TTC btw and I also was a student of environmental science, (until I switched courses recently), so I am far from ignorant about climate change.
The thing is, if you are so happy with your choice to remain child free, that's wonderful. You do you hun and all that. But actually, there is something a bit sinister about your motives for coming on to a parenting site, when your child bearing days are well behind you, to say no younger people should be allowed to have children. Think that through. This isn't your business and isn't your place. You are attempting to interfere and coerce people out of their reproductive rights, because you are no longer in the game.
The fact is, that climate change has been a well known concept for many years. It's a terrible thing.
But, there have been terrible wars and atrocities throughout human history and before us, throughout the history of the planet. People continue to have children because it is part of human nature, in fact a part of the nature of all living things.
Yes, we have more choice, but only in the same way we choose to live a long life, receiving treatment well into our 80s and 90s to prolong our lives.
For some people who are childfree or childless, the choice not to have children was probably a combination of factors. It is rarely, if ever a sacrifice. Mostly the same people saying they sacrificed having children for the good of the planet post on other threads saying how they don't want children and think it looks horrible.
While the planet is overpopulated or becoming overpopulated, the UK is at below replacement levels for birth. The problem in this country isn't that "selfish" people have too many babies it's that "selfish" elderly people just won't die quickly enough, (I don't really think this btw, but wording it in a way the die hard DON'T BREED fuckwits on here might understand).
Also, when you look at damage to the planet, a large family in parts of Africa, (where the population actually IS growing due to birth rates and longer life expectancy), a verhy large family does less damage than a single, childless/ childfree westerner, like lynsey etc. This implies that it is not purely a numbers game, where more people = more damage. There are many more factors at play.
Also if nobody had children starting right now, yes the human race would die out. If you're happy about that, that's one thing, but consider how the final few decades on the planet would look for people who have nobody to provide food, healthcare or utilities, nobody to pay into the economy etc. Also, consider the mess we would leave behind, in terms of nuclear power plants left still standing with nobody to work in them.
Also, the last man irl who told me having children was terribly selfish and so bad for the planet, ended up having three rounds of IVF to have his first child with his partner. So I take a lot of this noise with an enormous pinch of salt.
There was an excellent article about this, which I will try to find, where the writer spoke about how post productive white men are driving the DON'T BREED message, aimed at the areas where population is set to grow significantly, (mainly Africa), when actually, lifestyle choices would make a bigger difference. So, if you think you are being woke by shouting about how you would never have had children if you knew blah blah, stop and have a think. You are taking the easy road out of any responsibility for the future by having your children, (or not, but, let's face it, if not, it's most likely, either because you couldn't or because you never really wanted to), and now saying "oh the end is nigh, no more babies, let's die off and protect gaia". Exploiting the planet to make yourself look like a fucking hero. Well, you're not.