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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not understand why people are still having kids?

688 replies

Tobythecat · 20/09/2020 19:21

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?

OP posts:
Littlepond · 21/09/2020 07:34

My kids are gonna save the world. So it’s a good job I had them! You are welcome everyone.

Weirdwonders · 21/09/2020 07:38

I could have written this post myself OP. I don’t have children but these thoughts are at the forefront of my mind all the time.
People say ‘but what if the human race dies out!’ - that’s not remotely likely though is it? We could afford to put the breaks on a bit but even now everyone I know still has 2+ children.

netsybetsy · 21/09/2020 07:39

@StoneofDestiny

I try my hardest to convince myself that Trump isn't real, but sadly there he is

I bet you do! Sadly we’ve got our own idiotic Boris Johnson who models his leadership ‘style’ on Trump. Our world deserves better.

Can you imagine? Someone once thought it was a good idea to bring Trump into the world. Maybe he was cute as a baby 😂
SerenDippitty · 21/09/2020 07:45

What jobs and quality of life is available to the children of today when they grow up will likely be bitterly competitive so you best be sure you have the resources to give them every chance in life to compete.

It’s the future jobs situation that worries me, what with increased automation and AI there simply is n’t going to be enough work to go round if the population continues to increase. And what there is will become increasingly specialised. There may well be a huge underclass with no hope of ever working. This may not affect the current generation of children, but their children and grandchildren very possibly.

Sunshineandmoonlight · 21/09/2020 07:45

This whole post is completely bizarre. The continuation of the human race is a natural consequence of existence. Wondering why people despite whatever future continue to reproduce is like... not actually the important question? Of course they do.

Not many species would actively suicide their race because they are too concerned with the future and how they will need to adapt.

SerenDippitty · 21/09/2020 07:50

[quote PablosHoney]@SerenDippitty you are enough in yourself, your worth doesn’t relate to procreation, nature isn’t discriminatory and bad stuff happens to good people too.[/quote]
Thank you! I do realise this, but sometimes it is hard to keep sight of in the relentlessly pronatalist society we live in.

ChelseaDaggers · 21/09/2020 07:52

This reply has been deleted

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magvdamme · 21/09/2020 07:52

Please can I borrow your crystal ball for a few day OP as clearly you know something that everyone else doesn't about what the future holds. 🤔🔮

ChelseaDaggers · 21/09/2020 07:53

Thank you! I do realise this, but sometimes it is hard to keep sight of in the relentlessly pronatalist society we live in.

Mindless pronatalism is as bad as antinatalism imo. I'm sorry you've experienced this.

CarlottaValdez · 21/09/2020 07:53

I don’t understand why you think they’re lying when they say it was worth it. I feel DS was “worth it” despite crippling PND for the first 12 months of his life. Believe me or don’t I guess.

orangejuicer · 21/09/2020 07:53

@JoeCalFuckingZaghe

Are you a mum OP?
Clearly not.
WaterOffADucksCrack · 21/09/2020 07:56

There seem to be a lot of posters saying "my children are teens/adults but if I were young enough to have children now I'd reconsider". That's so easy to say now you've got the family you wanted isn't it.

ChelseaDaggers · 21/09/2020 07:57

@WaterOffADucksCrack

There seem to be a lot of posters saying "my children are teens/adults but if I were young enough to have children now I'd reconsider". That's so easy to say now you've got the family you wanted isn't it.
Oh don't even start me on these people.
Danni290 · 21/09/2020 07:58

Your post is actually very insensitive and rather silly. I haven't RTFT but what if a child born today was a child that grows up to solves climate change? Or makes a big difference to the world in some other way?

So we should all stop having kids and then become extinct 150 years from now, you think that's a solution to the worlds problems? The world has had problems since its creation - you've just come on here to vent your frustration and bitterness it sounds like.

Kazakaren · 21/09/2020 07:59

I understand your point op, and to some level I agree with you. I have kids though, so my focus has to be on making the world a better place.

middleager · 21/09/2020 08:03

Why is this thread still going when OP clearly has issues? OP, I feel sorry for you on some level and hope you address your issues in a constructive way.

fairydustandpixies · 21/09/2020 08:05

Yes, you are definitely BU.

ChelseaDaggers · 21/09/2020 08:05

@middleager

Why is this thread still going when OP clearly has issues? OP, I feel sorry for you on some level and hope you address your issues in a constructive way.
I have no idea. Honestly, it has no place on a parenting forum. Take it elsewhere please and thank you.
ChelseaDaggers · 21/09/2020 08:10

There was one poster btw, who used to go on the the conception boards, where people go when TTC, including those suffering with infertility. She would brag about how she was "childfree by choice" and how selfish the people TTC were. The thing is, that is someone who is not quite right. Like trolls on here who come on and write awful things about Meghan Markle or Jack Monroe. Those threads get deleted and repeat offenders get banned. But when someone says they deliberately come to snigger at parents who are struggling, because it makes them feel better about their own lives, that's ok according to HQ.

ChelseaDaggers · 21/09/2020 08:11

That poster is still on here btw, although I haven't seen her whip out the "I'm childfree by choice unlike you selfish fuckers" line in a while.

YouWereGr8InLittleMenstruators · 21/09/2020 08:13

It is not mean to have this conversation on a parenting website, Rosebel. Don't you think many parents are having this conversation in their own heads a lot of the time in one form or another, precisely because they are parents?
It is not antinatalist as a previous poster suggested, just a natural response to what is a growing concern, especially for parents.
On this thread, I am seeing a lot of subjective responses to a global, objective issue; lots of "Well, I am going to raise my kids to be the best they can be..." etc, which is not what the OP is really asking. OP is, it seems to me, wondering how we as parents plan on explaining to our kids how we justified parenthood to ourselves.
I am also seeing cited examples of other 'disasters' which have heaped suffering on sections of mankind over the millennia. It seems to me that none of these would really have threatened life on earth quite in the same way as we are currently seeing with the climate, so I think it is a false comparison.
I am also a bit grossed out by the response that "children born in the West will most likely be OK", which wilfully blanks what is happening to people (not to mention species) in cities and countries in other parts of the world, as a direct consequence of a heating climate, right now. Like that's somehow OK.

Enrico · 21/09/2020 08:16
  1. People have children because all species that can reproduce do so in order to perpetuate their species.
  2. We are collectively, globally, and in each individual country, having fewer children than we did seventy years ago. This has been the case for several decades ie more than a generation.
  3. People have always continued to have children even in the face of large scale or global uncertainty. Through plague, pestilence, famine, they've done it. During my early years there were some who wrung their hands about those who had children despite the fact that they would doubtless perish in what seemed, for twenty years, imminent and likely nuclear war. Yet, here we all are.
ChelseaDaggers · 21/09/2020 08:22

I am also a bit grossed out by the response that "children born in the West will most likely be OK"

Completely agree with this. But also bear in mind that a lot of the antinatalist rhetoric as a response to climate change comes from privileged, post productive, white men. (I do have a source for this, if I could find the fucking thing).

The main area for 'concern' in terms of birth rate is projected to be in Africa.

So, let's think that through; the west likes holibobs in the sun, eating vast quantities of meat and aircon. Woopsy daisy, we've fucked the planet. How shall we combat this? Less babies! Oh we already are having what some people say is a concerning low number of babies in this country. It is not considered by all experts to be a good thing that we have been at below replacement level for years here. But ah yes, in Africa and parts of Asia, there's your trouble. Crack down on the babies.

Also, as I said, lifestyle comes into it in a significant way, otherwise carbon footprint wouldn't be so much bigger per person in the west than elsewhere.

Enrico · 21/09/2020 08:28

@ChelseaDaggers agree with you. The worst of it is that the birthrate has already fallen and is falling throughout Africa anyway, so even that eugenicist target is not an accurate one.

A lot of this often boils down to "my solution is that everyone else needs to stop doing something that I, for complex personal reasons, feel ambivalent towards. This is preferable to considering how best to share finite resources".

squeekums · 21/09/2020 08:30

wondering how we as parents plan on explaining to our kids how we justified parenthood to ourselves
Parents don't need to justify it.
Just like non parents don't have to justify not having kids to the "your likes totes missing out #mumlife #blessed" crowd
As women our reproductive choices are just that, OUR choice and no one else's business. Even our kids. I mean I never wanted a brother but I didn't get to make that choice, nor did my mother have to justify it to me, she wanted a 2nd kid so that's that.