to not have children because I can't give them a better or even equal life to mine?

[eastea]

I grew up poor but I was bright, worked hard, went to University, got a first, and then a masters degree. I met and married my DH also the first in his family to go to university and have a professional job. We worked hard but we still have a standard of living roughly equivalent to that of our parents had and that is without us having kids yet. Even our generation as promised so much if only we got a degree but it all turned out to be lies for the most part, these days the debt is even more and the rewards even fewer so what about when babies today grow up?

It feels like in order to actually move up in the world now you can't just work your way there you need to inherit not only wealth but also contacts, a certain confidence and way of being in the world, having a private education for example.

My DH and I do ok but we live a pretty modest lifestyle and when I look at all the things most kids seem to do now like all the various lessons, extra curricular activates, tutoring it seems very out of reach. Not to mention the odd holiday abroad access to cultural activities that would help them to fit in once at university if they went. I know these things do matter because I went to university not having ever been abroad and in many instances though I knew what a word meant I would get the pronunciation wrong because I'd never heard it said aloud prior to being a uni. Those deficits marked me out as different, and I was ridiculed for my accent and I never quite fitted in (perhaps a feature of the university I went to where most were from very wealthy backgrounds).

I've seen other working class, university educated people who don't quite fit in anywhere go on to have kids who also don't quite fit in anywhere and I feel like if I could buy my kids what I didn't have though a private education or some other means then I might think of it but I just feel like its getting harder and harder for people to maintain what they have and that any gaps for meritocracy as closing up.

I just see a very bleak future where few make it and those that will probably have generations of wealth behind them and for those that don't I think life will probably be pretty miserable mired in debt, subscription fees, poor healthcare and little hope of having a secure home or even children of their own. That is even before I consider the environmental disaster that awaits us and future generations.

I just feel sometimes like its kinder not to have them.

If you don't want children, fine. Don't have them. You don't need an excuse. A poor economy, climate change, nuclear annihilation, asteroids, whatever are just excuses. People have reproduced throughout history in worse conditions than these.

When was the planet last on the verge of extinction?

OP sounds completely preoccupied with money, class, and social mobility.

You mean things that could have an impact on the life of her future child? Maybe she should just stick her head in the sand?

I didn’t know anyone thought about anything this much. If you want kids, you have to override any rationality and go for it. It’s not guaranteed anyway.

A lot of demographers cite confidence in future - so economic downturns do see dramatic birth rate drops in societies with access to birth control - it's an observable phenomenon - though it may be a postponement for some.

So it make perfect sense if OP is pessimistic about future economically she'll not want kids.

When was the planet last on the verge of extinction
Cuban Missile Crisis ? I was not around then but I've read we came very close to a nuclear war.

They have but its only been since 1960/70’s that women had much control over avoiding pregnancy’s with contraceptives, very recently in the grand scheme of things.

The Cuban Missile crisis lasted a few days and wasn’t inevitable.

Yeah exactly, someone on this thread said the 90s were much better than now because of stuff like the Ukraine war.

Pretty sure there was a war in Yugoslavia in the 90s

You’re massively overthinking this.

Is the prospect of your DC being upwardly mobile all that matters to you?

Don’t have children if you don’t want them, being a parent isn’t for everyone, but your reasons come across as rather odd.

Without this becoming a private v state thread, it's possible, as someone has said, to value education without private school.

We are first generation graduates too. Decent professional incomes (household income over £200k). I am probably one of the few people I know who don't send their kids private. We live in a decent area so we don't need to.

My eldest plays 4 instruments and is highly academic. My youngest, also highly academic, is very sporty. Both are at state primary schools. Their weekends are full of football clubs and music groups - none of which is expensive if you know where to find it. We pay £2 a week for music lessons via a charity and £2.50 for music lessons at school (the other instruments are private so, ok, expensive). We ensure their homework is done and they are clean and presentable. They are polite (99% of the time) and can engage with adults. They are happy and healthy and we do activities together as a family at weekends.

Where I think people do struggle is the guilt affiliated with working full time to afford a nice house in a nice area. That is the difference between my kids upbringing and mine. I had a parent at home 100% of the time. People rarely do now. This means that life can sometimes be more stressed fitting in all the extra curricular. And I do feel guilty. But we all do our best.

@KatBurglar there have been wars and political issues in every decade.

"Our generation was promised so much but it was lies"
😂

My DD was a “surprise” pregnancy in my late teens. I think if I didn’t get pregnant that way I would not plan to have children, not right now in my life anyway - it just feels like we are on an ongoing treadmill. I do have an ideal scenario in mind to bring children in - that never happened - but I am also ambitious and resilient and will drop anything for my daughter and she is one of the best people I know.

What I have learned about parenting is that you are raising another human that will have their ups and downs. They will need to go through life and learn. No matter what the external looks like, it’s all about raising people to learn to be grateful and how to handle the world when it’s their turn to do it alone. We build memories for them - for some it’s travelling and for others it’s talking walks in their cities because that is what is nearby.

The world right now is awful! It really is. We have a generation of people growing up knowing this - and I’m sure a few will be in positions when they are older to do their part to make it better.

We are humans, we procreate. If you don’t want children, don’t have them. If you do - it’s not the end of the world.

My family have zero contacts and live abroad. I work for one of the top law firms in the City and honestly I have absolutely no clue which school any of my colleagues went to 🤷‍♀️ it actually never comes up in any conversation. (I went to state school btw but abroad if it matters.)

Because the majority of people cannot afford to help their children with house deposits and things like that. It's ridiculous to suggest that you shouldn't have children if you can't do that.

I also disagree that having children is a "luxury" and think that's an incredibly sad way of just saying that poor people should just accept their place in life and not demand anything better. Snobby, appalling attitude.

There is no reason at all why, provided you're in good health, two educated adults should not be able to offer children a comfortable life. You may not be able to live that life in the most expensive areas of the UK , or in your dream house, or spend a fortune on consumer goods, but a good life nonetheless. As for your children, why should things be worse for them? If you can feed, clothe and educate them, they can go on to build a comfortable life for themselves too. Plenty of us come from WC backgrounds, have to watch our budget and will inherit nothing, but our lives and those of our children still have value, meaning and joy.

The vast majority of kids don't have the things you claim are essential to a happy life - but they're happy. So it's reasonable to assume you don't need private schooling, tons of extra curriculars and foreign holidays to have a happy life. So if that genuinely is your only reason for not having kids then it's a very flawed reason - perhaps talking to someone would help you work out why those are things you regard as essential to be happy.

If that's just an excuse and you just don't like the idea of having kids that's a perfectly valid reason - own it!

It sounds more like you are disappointed in your own life. maybe it’s time to count your blessings.

This is quite sad to read. Do you live in London? Is there no way to train upwards for either of you? Career alteration?

The "planet" is not on the verge of extinction. The "planet" will be just fine. It's humanity that's threatened, and even then I think the likelihood of all humanity being totally wiped out is pretty slim.

You’re not unreasonable to take into account your personal circumstances when deciding whether to have children. We have one DD but didn’t have a second primarily because of our age and finances (which are absolutely fine but would’ve been stretched by a second).

Where we differ is your bleak, pessimistic outlook on the future generally. I’m sure someone having a child in the midst of the Second World War or the Great Depression would’ve probably had the same view of the future.

Why the inverted commas around planet? We live on a planet which humankind is systematically destroying. Have you been asleep for the last 40 years?

The planet isn’t being destroyed. It’s being altered so it will not support life, certainly not human life anyway.

The planet will be here for millions of years after humans die out.

I think that’s what @Clytherow means?

A beautiful green planet capable of supporting and nurturing life is being transformed into a burnt arid rock. In what sane mind is that not destruction?