Reasons to have children please

[Lookingforguidance]

Myself and DH both love children and have always wanted them but in the last few months he has been researching a lot about the global impact having them had on the environment and also the fact that there are millions of children in the world who don’t have families. He has now decided that having our own biological ones is unethical when we could adopt. I would love to have one and adopt one.
We’re both looking for reasons to justify having our own (not just for emotional/selfish reasons like to see your own genes passed down/ to experience pregnancy and childbirth/ because it makes you happy etc). I’m really searching for concrete evidence that will convince him we should have just one. Please help. Thank you

@lynsey91

I never said it wasnt selfish. But it is one of a million selfish things humans do in their lives isnt it? childless people included.

Also- dont forget it is a strong biological urge too so whilst yes, its selfish, its also an innate primal instinct for many people that comes from our brains to keep our genes going. If we didnt have this "selfish gene" every species in the world would have died out by now.

@Lookingforguidance

For those asking I’m on the far end of 27 he’s 33 so I believe this is the exact right time to be discussing it as there may not be too many fertile years left

Time is very much on his side and not yours even though you are younger...it only takes a couple of miscarriages and you will have a lot less time than you think. If he is not grown up enough at 33 to want to pro-create, he likely never will be, so you may need to find a new partner....again time not on your side but it is on his.

Well no I don't think it is selfish. Someone has to raise the next generation. Unless you feel it's OK for the human race to die out, I suppose some people do genuinely feel that, I don't. I quite like humans and would like us to continue! I don't especially think my child will do anything enormously earth-changing, but I do try to raise my children to be kind and considerate people and I believe that they will do good in the world, as I try to do. Lots of little incremental positive changes over time.

You could just as easily say it's selfish to not have children, because you're leaving the hard work to somebody else. I don't think that's true either - having children is hard and not something anyone should go into lightly. If someone doesn't want children then they are probably better off focusing their energies somewhere else.

I just don't think being selfish or not comes into it. I didn't have children only for my own benefit, although of course I thought I would benefit from it, or I wouldn't have had any! That's the same for lots of things you could do, though, and generally a good thing - you will tend to do better at something if you enjoy it.

Is it selfish to work in a job you enjoy because you enjoy it, when you could be using your education and skills for some worthier purpose? What if the job does some good, but it isn't the best possible job you could do for humanity? I don't think anyone would say that about work so I don't see why people say it about children.

OP :)

If you really care about population growth then support charities that help educate people about contraception and help distribute it.

@BertieBotts of course you had children only for your own benefit. Literally no one else benefits from that decision. And all that pension payment stuff has been proved to be incorrect.
And no, you can’t as “easily just say it is selfish to not have children because someone has to do the hard work”. No one has to do the hard work. Of course people should have children if they want to but please don’t make it out as you are doing something to benefit the planet and others should be grateful for it.

@BertieBotts you didn’t actually have children for altruistic reasons did you?

Are people a bit hard of thinking here today?

It's surely not hard to see what I'm saying is it's hardly a black and white issue. It's too complicated to say it's selfish vs selfless.

@Indecisive12

To look after you when you’re old.

Speaking as someone who worked for years in older people's social care: hmmmm...

Reasons to have children:
Hormones

Reasons not to have children:
Everything else.

Only joking. Sort of.

I think having children is wonderful and rewarding and incredibly hard work. I don't think I would have changed my mind about having children, but I might have thought about it a bit more, knowing what I do now. Having said that I can't imagine life without them and the grandchildren.

Countries need young people to keep things going and support the elderly. Increasingly older populations create their own issues.

God this would really put me off someone. He sounds like a child. Researched reasons not to have children but online asking people to convince him to just go ahead and have them. If he feels so strongly about the impact on the environment, then he should make the decision not to have his own biological children rather than looking to a load of strangers to tell him it's OK.

Because they can be the most precious and most heartbreaking thing in your life all at the same time.
The love you have for your child is unequalled on this earth.

No-one who weighed up the pros and cons of the decision would have kids would they?
Is your DH Dominic Cummings? All about rational modelling?

@BertieBotts I agree with you. Framing this as selfish/unselfish is bizarre imo. Even suggesting that women take the "decision" to have children makes a whole heap of cultural, economic and social assumptions which don't apply uniformly even in a developed economy like the UK, let alone globally. Can't we just agree that - as a baseline - having children is a morally neutral act? Whether or not your offspring go on to cure cancer or become serial killers isn't entirely (or even at all) within your gift, as a parent.