To this this is NOT the worst time ever to bring a child into the world

[Celebrityskint]

Quite often I see posts going on about today’s world being a terrible world to bring children into... but honestly... in the UK... we’re probably having a very good life compared to most people in most of history.... it’s not a terrible time to bring children into the world

No disease 20 years ago?? Kids have been dying from cancer, pneumonia and all sorts for years. What a stupid post. Thousands freezing to death this winter, in this country? Come off it. Sales of tobacco and alcohol are higher than ever. Holiday companies are selling holidays left right and center. Literally couldn’t move in the trafford center last week for people buying expensive trainers toys computers eg . Financial ruin? Only if you’ve made shitty decisions already IMO. Those with very little always suffer and always have done and it’s always unfortunately been that way, acting like middle class families are going to be freezing to death in a country where the lowest winter temp is about plus 3 degrees c for a couple of weeks is hilarious. People have survived with little in much colder places for years. Such ridiculous posts on here. People in the Ukraine are having babies or making babies as we type. Would you call them selfish arseholes to their faces?

The posters saying that they have older/adult kids but wouldn't have them now, you do realise you are being massive hypocrites, yes?

There has always been things to worry about. Throughout history the human race has faced wars, diseases, famine, terrorist attacks, etc. These things existed when you had your kids too, to varying degrees. There has never been an ideal time to have children. You're complete hypocrites, stop trying to make mums or small children and people ttc feel bad.

That's what it reminded me of too.

I had a baby this year and in 2020, both via IVF. Only time will tell if they could have been born in better times but what does that matter? We shouldn't just die off because life is shit, as it always is in some way or other.

Honestly it astounds me how many people either know very little about history, or are totally incapable of understanding just how hard life was for a lot of people in past times. YANBU.

i was a small child when 9/11 happened. I remember overhearing my mums friend being like ‘oh what a world for your kids to grow up in! They will be living in constant fear ! ’ cared the shit out of me. I’m having and have had a pretty nice life TBH.

Hmm even my mother who likes to take great pleasure in exclaiming the youth have it no worse than back in her day has recently been stating that shit is pretty fucked up!

So I am going to say it’s quite fucked.

Still had a child this year and have great hope for his future. It seems like we are hitting rock bottom so at least he won’t remember it and only one way to go from there!

So which lucky fuckers get to reproduce then? Because someone has to, unless you're totally against the existence of mankind.

And hahah to it’s a selfish act. First child, body trashed, not a single night of unbroken sleep for 6 months now. I can do selfish, quite happily. It’s a skill of mine. This is pretty much the opposite.

@Vecna according to MN only those with at least 50k saved up , you know, for emergencies. Anything less and your absolutely skint and doomed.

We’ve chosen not to have children as we feel that the life they’ll have will be significantly worse than the life we had growing up. We’re early 30’s and earning more money than our parents were and are lucky compared to a lot of my friends and siblings (have a house etc.) but there’s no way we feel confident the world will be a good enough place to bring more people into it. Climate change, the way society and services are failing, political upheaval, not to mention financial concerns… it seems risky.

@LemonSwan but I guess what people mean when they say it’s selfish is that you presumably had a child because you wanted one. It was fulfilling your want, rather than for a selfless reason. The day to day of being a parent may not be selfish, but the desire for and creation of your child is selfish.

I wouldn’t judge anyone who decides to have children though, it’s just such a personal decision of what you feel comfortable with. Just like some people have children in rented accommodation, some people want to wait until they have their own home. It’s the same for the global situation in a way.

It’s probably a better time to have children than at nearly any previous time in the history of humankind.

I’m of course aware that the world is facing challenges, but for any given individual, the positives in terms of technology and health still outweigh the negatives.

Brexit, Covid, Lockdown, Shortage of goods, Shops closing, Financial Crisis, Energy Crisis, Threat of war, Influx of immigrants, NHS crisis, Strikes, Increase in violent crime, Inadequate Policing, Climate change (last but not least).

I'm sure someone can add to the list.

OP said AIBU to think this this is NOT the worst time ever to bring a child into the world.

It's not the best is it.

Black Death, sepsis, blood loss, black lung, limb loss in the cotton mill, death from illegal abortion, rabies, smallpox, polio, tetanus…

Yes, this is the best it has ever been.

Anyone born healthy in the UK in recent years has absolutely won the lottery of life. To have been born here at any point in the last fifty years, healthy, and to have failed to do well is utterly shameful.

@PrincessButtercupToo I dont think it’s the best time in the U.K. My Uncle was born in 1943, and he says he’s the luckiest generation alive. He has a massive final salary pension, has had the full benefit of the NHS which means a much better life expectancy than his parents generation, was a grammar school boy who came from a working class background and ended up a managing director of a multinational company despite leaving school at 16… all things no one today could have done. His contemporaries got free university education if they chose it as well. They missed the worst of the war and can’t remember the tough times of rationing and all bought houses much easier than people today, and then benefitted from the way house prices have increased.

How can you say this is the best time, in comparison to being born 70 years ago?

We are not short of people reproducing. The world’s population is North of eight billion people, and rising.

The idea that we ought to be making accommodations for more people to have children is simply not tenable.

There is never a right time to bring a baby into the world, but we still do it and mostly it's fine.

I'm not particularly old but I can remember IRA bombs going off in London, doing homework by candle light, occasional Soviet sabre rattling, the miners strike and the down turn of the early 80s, dropping out of the ERM, millions in negative equity, AIds, 9/11, assorted terror campaigns, the financial crash.

That's just a few of the challenges of the last 50 years.

Most of us have had a long period of relative calm and affluence since 2010, compared to other decades. Now we are in for a bit more of a bumpy ride. And we'll adapt. Children are better at adapting than adults. It's no worse a time to have a baby than any other.

How? Life expectancy, expectancy of healthy years lived, educational opportunities, social mobility, earning potential, travel opportunities.

If your uncle is trying to extrapolate from his personal experience to make an argument about the whole population then he’s a moron.

@drunkinthebackofthecar my brother was born in 1986 and is on 100k plus a year after leaving state grammar at 16. Loads of people are in amazing jobs after leaving state grammars, it’s a con that you ‘have’ to go to Uni, it’s just the done thing these days. Loads of people born in the same year as your uncle will have lived through real poverty, had no central heating, ice on the windows etc, no access to contraceptives, women won’t have been given the same rights and freedoms as now, being gay was punishable by law and any SEN kids were weakly accepted at best, locked away at worst. It’s two sides of the same coin, you’re uncle has just been lucky same as someone now has been lucky. Myself and dp in our early 30s own a house with a very low mortgage because we were lucky with an inheritance and bought in a low cost area. You don’t have to buy a 4 bed in Surrey as your first home. You could buy a house tomorrow just not where you probably want one!

Our little one was unplanned so nope that one doesn’t check out either for me.

I think abortion would have been a more selfish choice, and that’s not saying abortion is selfish. More that for us at that time I feel the less selfish thing was to continue the pregnancy.

I am glad I did. He’s delightful. If not slowly killing me. Sometimes I literally feel like my cells are malfunctioning from exhaustion. Am not even joking about that!

@Blueeyedgirl21 do you not see the irony in saying you were able to buy a house because you were “lucky” with an inheritance? Most people don’t get lucky with an inheritance, that’s part of the massive inequality in housing at the moment. Average working people on normal salaries didn’t use to have to wait for someone to die and leave them money to buy a house.

We do own our own home with a good amount paid off due to an inheritance on my husband’s side. I am not so naive to think that most of my contemporaries who don’t own homes yet could buy a house “tomorrow”.

@drunkinthebackofthecar seeing as you’ve started two threads recently, one being a Mard arse that mum wouldn’t collect you from the station and another that your family were giving your toddler niece too much attention I’d say it’s a good thing you’ve apparently made this wise and superior decision not to bring another horrible screaming brat into the world 😉

@drunkinthebackofthecar and yes my dp was really lucky his dad died from an industrial illness so he got some money to better his life - oh wait, I thought everyone born in the past had it so good they were going to live to 90 and be mega rich like your one uncle who’s had a good life 🙈

@Blueeyedgirl21 wow - that sounds almost identical to my husband’s inheritance. His father died in an industrial accident. I’m really sorry that happened to your husband.

But that’s kind of my point - having an inheritance and buying a house isn’t luck, is it? And if that’s the only way you can buy one, that’s not a functioning housing market. The housing situation is one example where things have gotten worse.