‘If no one had children…’

[WomanStanleyWoman]

Whenever there’s a thread on MN about not wanting children, someone will inevitably pop up to say ‘Well, if no one had children, the human race would die out’ or ‘It’s all very well not wanting children, but someone has to raise the next generation - good luck getting a doctor or anyone to look after you in your old age if everyone takes that attitude’.

It shouldn’t need saying because it’s so bloody obvious, but I see this argument so often on MN that I really start to wonder. So here it is:

People are NOT suddenly going to stop having children en masse. According to Wikipedia, Mumsnet had 119 million unique users in 2018. Obviously that doesn’t equate to 119 million individuals, but it does give you an idea of how much traffic a site primarily promoted to parents gets. Even if half the active MN users are childless (unlikely), I still don’t think we need to panic about the end of the human race as we know it just yet.

Just as there are people who can have children but choose not to do so, there are people who cannot have biological children who will make huge financial and emotional investment in IVF or surrogacy. Just as there are countless people who plan to have children, there are plenty of unplanned pregnancies where the parents decide to keep the baby. People will always want and have children. They’re not like the Yellow Pages or high street retail - there won’t come a point where everyone just uses the internet instead.

So does anyone really believe ‘If no one has children, we’d be screwed’ is a valid argument? Or are these people simply just trying to justify their disapproval of the voluntarily child-free?

State pension is basically a massive Ponzi scheme, so yes we’d probably be f&cked if we stopped having kids

It's the typical, lazy "strawman" argument" where an unlikely/impossible extreme position is taken to lazily argue a point when someone is devoid of any sensible discussion argument.

It's like the old chestnut of "if we scrap the NHS, we'll end up with the American healthcare system", i.e. taking the two extreme options as the only binary choice, and completely ignoring all the middle ground options.

@whoatealltheeggs

Of course you need children & "new blood", it's evolution. If the population is too large it makes just as much sense to cull the elderly then stop people having dc.

No it doesn't.

If you 'cull' an elderly person, then you are reducing the population by 1 person. And that reduction is only real up until the point at which the elderly person would have died anyway. So you have a reduction on 1 person for maybe 10-20 years.

If you don't have a child, you are directly reducing the population by 1 person for 70-90 years, and you are also indirectly reducing the future population by the number of children that person would have had, and the number of children those children would have had etc. etc.

And that's without going into the debate about the morality of 'culling' (aka murdering) real life human beings as opposed to simply not creating new ones who don't yet exist.

@MrsWinters

State pension is basically a massive Ponzi scheme, so yes we’d probably be f&cked if we stopped having kids

But we're not going to ALL stop having kids, so that comment is completely pointless and irrelevant.

@Fimofriend

Actually society will still function just fine even if the population decreases as more and more jobs and parts of jobs are becoming automated. It isn't just self scan in supermarkets. It is also administration like banking and taxes that we are now doing online. Information that used yo be typed in is now pulled automatically from one system to another. Then there is automated checking in many machines so you don't have to physically check that something is still working because the machine will tell you if something is wrong. Tasks that used to take hours sometimes only take minutes.Online shopping is more cost efficient and uses less manpower than retail shops.

And a lot of "jobs" don't NEED doing anyway, they're entirely optional/discretionary. If we ever had a labour shortage, then priority would have to be given to the jobs that NEED doing, as opposed to the "nice to have" kind of jobs, and if necessary, those necessary jobs would attract higher pay etc., as, after all, they need doing, so have to be paid for.

Say, if there was a desperate of shortage of roof repairers (necessity), then the charges/wages would have to increase to attract other people into that trade, so maybe the likes of gardeners, window cleaners, etc (discretionary jobs) would be attracted by the wages/demand to become roof repairers instead! Most people wouldn't really miss their lawn not being cut or their windows not being cleaned, but would certainly mind their roof not being repaired and their homes flooded!

I’ve not had children and won’t be doing so as I have no interest whatsoever and don’t feel maternal towards human beings- I prefer dogs.

If the world relied on people like me (and all of my friends) to repopulate it, it’d be f*ed.

I’m also concerned about the future of the planet (and wish others felt the same so as to stop breeding so much!), wouldn’t want to bring a kid into this world, but tbh, it’s mostly because I have no desire to go through pregnancy and lab out, and then to be responsible for another human being.

*labour, not lab out!

Well if as per your thread title literally no one had children anymore than of course the human race would eventually die out. As is the point you're making (I think anyway wasn't overly clear)- then yes I agree. People shouldn't use it as a way to justify their decisions or to try and shame others.

@BrightYellowDaffodil

In my experience, those who get huffy about other people choosing not to have children deserve to be ignored. They generally seem to fall into three categories (those who regret having children and don't see why you should dodge the bullet; those who genuinely think you're missing out because they haven't got the brain power to understand that different people enjoy different things; and those who think you've copped out of life's obligations because "It's just what you do!") and none of them is an adequate excuse for spouting martyred nonsense of how their heavy lifting in life is preventing the human race dying out.

Yes this!

and those who think you've copped out of life's obligations because "It's just what you do!"

I mean copping out just because is the same as those ‘copping in’ just because. Although having kids just because it’s expected is a lot more selfish than they’d have you believe copping out is.

@Octomore it makes sense to me, younger people will tend to be more productive & innovative then older people so economically it makes sense. It's generally how society progresses. Plus the UK population hasn't grown because of babies it's grown due to more people living longer & immigration.
Of course it's a moral issue but so is expecting people to not have children.

and wish others felt the same so as to stop breeding so much!),

What does this mean though? who is breeding too much?

If we ever had a labour shortage, then priority would have to be given to the jobs that NEED doing, as opposed to the "nice to have" kind of jobs, and if necessary, those necessary jobs would attract higher pay etc., as, after all, they need doing, so have to be paid for.

Er we have a labour & skills shortage now

But we're not going to ALL stop having kids, so that comment is completely pointless and irrelevant.

The comment about pensions is not irrelevant though. The issue is the gov hasn't planned for the impact of an ageing population. Why is the state pension increasing when life expectancy isn't? The new health & social levy tax won't be enough to counteract the fact that in the next 25 years, the number of people older than 85 will double to 2.6 million. It's something to celebrate but it does need to be planned for, we will all have to pay more.

Oh dear OP someone has a childfree agenda don't they

Anyway whilst we aren't going to suddenly stop having children the fact is that the current birth rate in Europe is falling below that which is economically required to sustain economies

Or are these people simply just trying to justify their disapproval of the voluntarily child-free?

It's this but very few, if any, will admit that.

YANBU.
People who say "imagine if everyone..." are just plain thick.
If every single person in the UK - all 70 million of them - decided to holiday in Devon during the same week in August, it would create a total societal collapse!
The same would happen if every single person in the UK - all 70 million of them - decided to bake a cake at the same time this Sunday!
Or anything else that you can imagine.
But WE'RE ALL DIFFERENT and make different choices so we will never see any of these scenarios happen!

I still really struggle to understand why people feel the need to comment on other people's reproductive decisions tbh.

Given that birth rate is well below replacement rate, it’s a more logical fear than that of runaway population growth due to too many babies.
I don’t think it’s used to shame the child free so much as to stop the smug superiority especially since most child free people tend to be surrounded by furry pets which are just as bad “environmentally” for carbon footprint as is a human child.

I really don't care of people choose to remain childless, stop at 1 or whatever.
I find it amusing when others think it perfectly reasonable to have a pop at me for having many children, like I give 2 fucks what they think.

I don't see childless life choice becoming popular enough to cause extinction.

Totally agree OP, if you choose to have kids ok but it's pretty ignorant to justify it that way. Even worse is "my children are going to grow up and do great things, one of them might solve world peace/climate change/etc". So so ignorant, as if one person can just "find the solution". No, they will be one of billions of faceless consumers like we all are.

Not having dc is the best gift to earth you could make.

I have dc btw so I'm not judging having them, just the weird justification.

I'm curious about the argument that people use to say that we shouldn't reduce the numbers of children being born because we need to support the existing people eg through healthcare, pensions etc (people need to pay in so others can take out). Someone above mentioned pensions as being like a big Ponzi scheme.

So if we reduce birth rate now we can't support those in existence, so we just have to keep adding more and more people to the planet to support those already here? Is there a point at which we can stop doing that? Have we missed that point?? But surely if we keep increasing numbers on the planet then we're screwed due to resources.

Sorry I'm probably not explaining my point very well - I think having lower birth rates wouldn't be a good thing environmentally but I've seen it on MN (and other places) that people think we have to keep birth rates up to support those in existence - if you think this or understand the argument can you explain it (I'm not being goady, just can't understand how constantly increasing is a good thing.)

the smug superiority especially since most child free people tend to be surrounded by furry pets which are just as bad “environmentally” for carbon footprint as is a human child.

Errr... No. Unless your cat is going to give birth to 1-3 + humans, who each give birth to 1-3 + more humans and so on. The child is an infinitly bigger footprint.

It would be better for the billions of other species on the planet if the human race did die out, so I don't accept any 'preserving the human species' argument as a reason for having children, because we are an utter menace who don't deserve the planet we've colonised.

Frankly I don’t really care if people choose to have children or what argument they want to make for it. As long as they don’t expect me to alter my blissfully happy childfree life out of concern for their offspring (“OMG, I hate how SELFISH everyone is nowadays, using all the planet’s resources and ruining it with their long haul flying and meat consumption for ever meal, what about the planet MY CHILDREN will have to live on??”), which I’ve absolutely no intention of doing because I don’t give a stuff about their children, then all is well.

It doesn't need to be justified by other people having children.

Human beings don't have an inalienable right to existence any more than any other species, any more than they have a right to be supported by younger humans.

To bring this argument out as some sort of trump card suggests that the person making the argument suffers from some sort of mental limitation, or is suffering from delusions of existential importance.