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

This came to mind reading this thread ... And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds ...

Well I'm definitely not a perfect human whose life greatly improves humanity or the planet. But some of the children born today and tomorrow might come up with something pretty great or wonderful that can change the world, stop climate change, clean up the oceans.

it's absolutely NOT selfish to have children. It is one of the most primary instincts we have left. That's why there are threads on here from devastated women who can't have children.
That's why, despite not being in the right place financially people still have children. (what so poor people can't have children ever?) that's why despite having difficulty in pregnancy and birth (and lets face it, even an easy pregnancy and birth is still incredibly difficult) people have children.

How dare people spout such shit as calling the miracle of life, the very reason for our existing, selfish? It's completely normal and right to want to have children, and to have them.

Unbelievable the amount of shit on this stupid website. Full of dumb idiots calling people on MUMSNET (it's in the title of the site) selfish for being a mum.

I'm not deliberately misconstruing what you're saying - I've simply commented on how your post comes across to me, which is that it's ok because there are people spending money, going on holidays etc., so who cares, it's all good. That may not have been what you meant but it is how it came across to me.

Yanbu I can think of many times that were worse

I hope the pressure future generations face aren’t too bad, can be mitigated against

I’m 34 I have 3 older kids now (secondary).
I love them with every bone of my body but I wouldn’t bother with it all if I had my time again and I certainly wouldn’t have another one now and many people my age still are. Each to their own I guess.

Even if we manage to mitigate some of the worst effects of climate change, there will certainly be more conflict over resources and hunger. Go into parenthood with your eyes open. Don’t just cross your fingers and hope for the best.

@PrincessButtercupToo not at all, I don't think everything is awful, I have two kids myself and a very comfortable life, but I know how incredibly lucky I am and have an awareness of the incredible imbalance of wealth, nutrition, education, medical care etc., on our own doorsteps as well as globally. I am positive about the future but also realistic about how incredibly bad it is right now. I'm not saying it's about to be Armageddon or even that it's worse now than it has been before but people need to look outside their own bubble once in a while.

Yanbu. My grandmother was born around 1930. They were not as poor as many but living in a polluted industrial town, she had rickets as a child and had pretty awful teeth etc.

Life was horrendous compared to now, she worked for a while in poor conditions in a mill, got a fairly crap education to the age of about 14. Everybody smoked around children. My grandmother suffered with a chronic condition that's now a) more preventable and b) much more treatable with modern medicine, so she was regularly in pain from her 40s onwards.

Many men of her fathers generation were traumatised from the second world war, only to then live through the second world war. Racism and anti semitism were rife, sexism was standard, children were routinely beaten.

Many babies died of things easily treatable today - prematurity, childhood infections.

My life is so so much better now.

I don’t think there’s ever a good or bad time to have a child really, some points/places in the world it will be easier than others, and you need to work hard to make sure the child has the best possible life (don’t mean paid employment here, I mean safe secure cared for thriving stuff).

Well quite. But this is MN, home of the irrational overreaction.

Also, I don't think people are any more or less selfish now then they have ever been to have kids (me included) but I find people's 'head in the sand' approach to life incredibly jarring.

Um, we'd be short of people reproducing if nobody reproduced. Sort of self-explanatory really.

I assume your second paragraph wasn't in response to me given its lack of relevance to the quoted comment.

Climate change aside, I don’t see why it’s a bad time. Cost of living crisis is hopefully temporary and there have always been wars. Many moaned about pandemic babies but it turns out 2020 was a perfect time to have kids with record low birth rates globally that may well translate to smaller class sizes better job prospects

There’s probably never been a better time in history to be born a woman either. I’m a millennial and can’t agree when my friends moan about boomers. I’d have hated to be a baby boomer woman like my mother and aunts. No expectation of uni and proper careers - early kids and rigid gender stereotypes for many (not all certainly but this was the case for many working class women in our circumstance and of our background) I like to think things are improving!

Social mobility is stagnant but I believe change is on the way.

I've chosen not to have children, because of climate change. In all good conscience I couldn't risk bringing a child into a world of hardship.

Having children is selfish. Doesn't make it wrong, but doesn't mean it isn't selfish.

You see it on here all the time, posters in abusive relationships but who are pregnant with their second because.....

The world is going to be a different place in my lifetime. We already had the hottest summer ever. Weather is getting worse. Floods. Resources. The whole economic model is going to change, it will have to.

My gran remembered women going to the school gates to breastfeed children through the gates .. many many children went to school without shoes. Ah the good old days!

I think the difference now is that we are sleep walking into global climate catastrophe. Which is, I believe, inevitable.

People always have been, and always will be, effected by disease, war, etc etc. But these things, while terrible at the time, are temporary and localised.

What's coming is a permanent change much for the worse for everyone planet-wide.

So no, I wouldn't knowingly bring a child into a life of misery in 20 or 30 years time, that will last for hundreds if not thousands of years. I'm glad I'll be dead by then.

I don’t think many people truly realise the scale and severity of climate change, it still seems to be portrayed as some sort of distant threat to “others over there” but the reality is all starting to appear.

All the increases in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events we have seen over the last few years are happening with 1.1 degree rise in temperatures. Business as usual would result in 4-5 degree rise and even with all the current pledges and commitments to net zero we are still on course for a 2.5-2.9 degree rise.

At this level you’re looking at the displacement of around 1-3 billion people and the loss of large swathes of food producing land.

Food is the real worry for me. We got a little glimpse of this this year when India suffered climate change induce crop failure of its wheat harvest, resulting in reduced yield and quality of the crop.

Some 60% of all calories consumed by humans come from just three crops, all of which have relatively narrow growing conditions, as far as maintaining a supply that can meet global demand, and all of which are grown in areas liable to experience significant impacts from climate change. This impact is already being felt in developing nations and while the developed world is still relatively insulated from it, all it will take is a few more reduced harvests or failures and the global supply chain for food will start to crack for us too. Right now money still talks but soon food will be too valuable to sell and that’s when the wars will start.

The scariest thing is that even if we stopped all emissions today we’d still be dealing with all the issues we have now, those aren’t going away. But by putting it off until at least 2050 we’ve got another 27 years or so of increased temperatures plus all the impacts that will bring. Unless we find some miracle future tech or accept drastic changes in living those still alive by then are really going to be struggling and widespread displacement, war and starvation will be common.

I suppose that’s why people and governments continue to down play it all, a message of “we’re all fucked” isn’t a vote winner or something anyone wants to hear.

Things do seem to be getting harder, but they won’t get easier in a hurry, it’s not impossible, just get on with it!

OP must be having a laugh. Posting this on the day the President of the US warned that we are at serious risk of nuclear Armageddon?
If nuclear war doesn't get us, Global Warming (accelerating) certainly will.
And that's before we mention any of the multitude of other extremely serious problems.
If you intentionally have a baby these days then you are extremely selfish.

@GonetoGround14

oh give over love…..

@GonetoGround14 I am not having a laugh. I think that there have been people worrying about the end of the world since the days of Jesus Christ: this is no worse a time to have children than any time before. Nothing is guaranteed in life,no. But it never has been.
so, if someone wants a child and they are capable of looking after it, then nah, don’t think they are being any more selfish than anyone was in the past

That response makes no sense at all.

You're catastrophising.

Climate change will cause all sorts of problems, hardship and massive upheaval, but parts of the world will become warm and wet enough to be fertile to replace those become too dry/hot. We have the means to distribute food and goods in a way we didn't in previous ages, and world poverty and hunger has reduced as a result.

Humans are by nature hopeful in hopeless situations. And stupid. And many modern humans are blinded by entitlement.

I think there will be global fertility controls in place within a couple of decades.