To not understand why people are still having kids?

[Tobythecat]

I understand that the urge to reproduce is very strong, but the future looks incredibly bleak (I'm not talking about just covid, but also climate change). I fear for the future and what sort of quality of life people will have, considering Automation/competition over jobs, climate change issues (food/water shortages, extreme weather). Honestly, how can you think that everything will be fine and work itself out, or do you just not think about it? Children today will face unimagineable suffering in the next 20-30 years, how can you justify it to them? I wanted children desperately but decided not to because of the above, plus genetic factors.

People mention the war and how people kept having kids, but the threats we face have never been faced before and are multifaceted. Is existing to suffer better than not existing at all?

@TikkaBoo

So not everyone has children because they need to feel that there is a point or usefulness to them.

No - I get that. There are people who squeeze every drop of joy out of life and always see the good in things. They're exactly the kind of people who make great parents and who should fill the world with kids.

Most people though? Nah. Just get through life as best you can and don't drag anyone else into it!

So I agree with you on this. People shouldn't be parents unless they're prepared to see the joy in life and show their kids it. To give them the absolute best. To fight against the crap and help them still see the beauty and how they can make more of it themselves. I work full time so many hours a week but I genuinely spend evenings researching things I can do with my daughter to make her childhood fun and joyful. Even little things like cutting toast into stars - takes second but gives her some magic at a rubbish time. She didn't ask to be born. I thought long and hard about having her. I am making sure I am giving her the tools to see the best in things money cannot buy, be the kindest person she can become, understand other people's suffering and make an active difference. I am also financially responsible for my decision and though my luck could change I am saving some money into account I cannot touch for her now (started from birth) so that if things get dire hopefully that is cushioned for her. I really didn't just wake up and decide my life was pointless and I needed a child to fill it

@TikkaBoo that’s definitely a more interesting question re adoption 🤔

@TikkaBoo

Was there no gluten-free pasta left in Waitrose?

A lot of my friends have depressed children.

I had debilitating depression, that lead to suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. I'm also not far away from being considered a "child" e.g. under 18. Yet here I am advocating for mothers, and also advocating that people can and do lead joyous lives. Mental health education and support is so important, but so is motherhood and remaining positive.

The urge to procreate is as old as time. Debates like this aren't going to override it! Am I worried for my DC's future though? Hell yes. Would I have still had them knowing what I know now? Probably, yes. They bring me joy, they're the next stage of my life. But..I won't be nagging them to have children of their own though. Which makes me very sad, I just think the outlook for the next 100 years is bleak. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and tbh, looking back, it was a golden age.

But life is a joy, it's a privilege and I intend to do everything I can to help my DC enjoy theirs.

Wow! Talk about negative.

I think the future is exciting for kids. Technology is really advancing. Education is more available to youngsters. We are a more tolerant amd understanding society than years ago. I say things are looking brighter actually.

@PablosHoney speak for yourself! I shall be a lithe and fit 55-65 year old. I will be spending my time doing yoga and living a wholesome life whilst simultaneously putting out the fires of the earth as it is razed to the ground around me whilst my adult children sob, why mother, why did you birth us into this unimaginable doom...

www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/25/why-everything-they-say-about-climate-change-is-wrong/amp/

I totally agree with you OP. I do have kids though and my reason is this - I wanted to experience it and I wasn't strong enough to give it up. I admit that is selfish.

And yes, no doubt they will experience the end of society. I suppose they will just have to take their chances, like all of us do. Hopefully they will have a happy enough 20-30 years.

Oh ffs! You must just have a very bleak outlook on life in general OP.

Any generation has / will struggle with something. You can’t possibly predict the future and I hope I can raise my children with a positive attitudes to life and teach them to not focus on the negatives (which can be found everywhere).

😂😂😂 Hopefully I’ll have a robotic lower half so I can cover a lot of ground in a leap and a bound

Iminaglasscaseofemotion and flameprincess congratulations to you both. You have nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about.

Because I want to 😁😂

I think life was better pre internet.When ppl used to actually interact with each other.We might not of had as much in material wealth but we were happier.I grew up in the 80s and remember playing outside being carefree and looking forward to a takeaway fish and chips on a friday.Life was simpler and better.

I’m 26 and I want to have a big family. I see it as my duty to have children, and hope that if I nurture my children well then some will end up as top doctors/ scientists/ business people that can actually help to solve the issues of climate change, as well as other issues that we are facing. If none of them end up that way then I will still love and support them. 😂

People shouldn't be parents unless they're prepared to see the joy in life and show their kids it. To give them the absolute best. To fight against the crap and help them still see the beauty and how they can make more of it themselves.

YY^^. The lowest ones are the ones who have babies, you know, a whopping ten years ago or so, and then pop up on these threads saying "oh I wish I'd never had them, because the suffering ". Get.your.shit.together. You had them at a time when CC CC very well known.

Was very well known*

I had debilitating depression, that lead to suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. I'm also not far away from being considered a "child" e.g. under 18. Yet here I am advocating for mothers

I have also had depression (not any more though) and anxiety, and I'm advocating for depressed women AND children.

My children would likely have the kind of brain that is also depression and anxiety prone. I recognise that life can often be a struggle. If you've ever been so low as to wish you weren't alive, I don't think it's ethical to make someone else be alive, knowing how painful it can be.

If you're of my ilk, but want the joy of raising a child, adopt. There are plenty that need good homes.

@Theterrible42s

Yes, we do face some huge and unprecedented challenges as a species at the moment, and yes a lot of stuff is extremely fucked up, but at the same time pretty much every generation has thought they were living through end times. My baby boomer parents grew up with the shadow of nuclear war over the first 30 years of their lives.

And also, this is a fucking horrible way to start a thread. Fuck off with your catastrophising on a forum for parents.

Exactly, what a miserable thread.

This is a way too hysterical view of the future.

Imagine living in the Middle Ages - the average person condemned to serfdom. No control over their future, enslaved to work for their Lords, no equality in law with the rich, annual famine, regular plague pandemics, lack of understanding of diseases and therefore no cures, few children surviving childbirth and if they did their life expectancy was 31. No education, regular conscription to fight the kings endless wars and superstition condemning many to cruel torturous deaths.

(Some developing countries today aren't far from this way of life still)

I'd rather live now, and rather my kids lived now.
Think what they have, not what they don't have.
Think what they can contribute and how they can resolve previous generations selfish waste of resources.

Social media etc has put a lot more pressure on young people especially those that don’t have proper parental care and guidance but I think a lot of looking back is totally rose tinted, I work in a senior school and the stuff people never used to care as much about in the 70’s-90’s E.g. 14 year old in sexual relationship is much safeguarded against than it was back then.

It's mean to post this on a parenting site where most people will be parents. I have 3 children one born very recently and will not apologise for the choice I made.
I don't know if my children will suffer in 20 years time (what's so important about 20 years) but I imagine they will come through it just like other generations before them.

@sharpeidiem wouldnt touch your vagina with a barge pole, take your aggression elsewhere.

12frogsincoats No, I'm pretty sure it's the hypocrisy on this thread and the amount of people who seem to be void of empathy and kindness that's upsetting me. That, and my apparent inability to conceive a child after years of trying, and then reading horrible threads like this.

The lowest ones are the ones who have babies, you know, a whopping ten years ago or so, and then pop up on these threads saying "oh I wish I'd never had them, because the suffering

I would actually cut these people a break. They didn't consider it at the time, but now they do, and it's too late.
For them, the only path is to try and FIND that joy and hope, and pass it on, because the other options are miserable.

I'd also rather have kids now than any other time in history. I can't think of a better time frankly. We are so fucking pampered now. The idea of life not being perfect and cushy means people think it isn't worth living at all. That's fucked up.