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.

Are you saying earth didn’t exist before it cooled down enough to sustain human life?

It will still support other life forms once we are gone. We are just destroying our own future. That’s the message, and I think it’s an important one.

It’s semantics. It’s a different way of saying the same thing. 🤷‍♀️

its not semantics, you just dont understand the effect of climate change. The planet isn't turning into a burnt arid rock. It will sustain plenty of life even at many degrees warmer than now but many places will experience extreme weather and flooding and become difficult for humans to live in resulting in han migration, famine, wars etc. Deeply unpleasamt for people and the many animals that cannot adapt or migrate amd will become extinct. However as humans suffer and decline, other animals more adaptable than us will begin to thrive and new ecologies will develop

Op you are not wrong and everything you said in your post is an important factor that people should consider. Ironically, this consideration that you are showing even towards your unborn child would make you a very good parent.

Having said that if you want to have children I'd go ahead and do it. We all (except for the few who have been coerced) have children for the purely selfish reason that we want to have a child. The selflessness only starts after birth or maybe after conception. Evolutionary most of us are programmed to have a strong urge to procreate and so we do (not that this is an excuse and good on you for thinking beyond that). What I mean is you wouldn't be the first or the last to make this selfish decision. You'd just be like most of the world.

For millenniums people have been bringing children into a less than perfect world or at times into absolutely terrible conditions and we can't blame them. It's just what pretty much everyone did.

So while morally you are correct from a human point of view I think we can be forgiven for this just as we should be forgiven for other human emotions and needs.

However from an individual child's point of view you can say of course that you don't want your (unborn) child to suffer or that you dont want to follow thr masses and perpetuate the selfishness yourself. I think many young people these days hold that view and I think it's very noble and admirable.

No child requires to be born. If you aren't bothered either way or just aren't that keen on having a child then that's perfectly fine and you would be doing the right thing.

But if you do want a child then I don't think you should deprive yourself. I mean you won't find a good justification to have a child (I didn't and I tried very hard but finally I had to accept thst it was just to satisfy my desire to have a child) but maybe the fact that you want one, that we are kind of programmed through evolution to want one and that everyone else is just doing it does count for something. There's a lot of beauty and happiness still around and who knows we can only hope that the future won't be as bad as it looks right now. I'm very worried for my children as well especially about climate change and I did think very long and hard before I had my first DC. I tried to find a justification but I couldn't and finally had to accept that if I have a child it would be just to satisfy my own very selfish desire to have a child and thst I was knowingly going to subject this potential child of mine to all the suffering and pain they might encounter. It sounds crazy but honestly I can live with that and I don't regret it. In spite of worrying for their future I'm (selfishly) still so happy and relieved that I have my kids and all I can do now is to try and make life as decent for them as I can.

Apologies for rambling!!

how many people regret that they were born?

or think that their mothers were selfish to have them?

Still a good reason not to bring children into the world.

I think you've got this the wrong way around (and points to a more fundamental problem with the society we've made). It's not that people on minimum wage shouldn't have children because they can't afford a decent life for them. People on minimum wage SHOULD be able to afford a decent life so that they can afford children if they want, that's the issue we should be fixing. Plus, if this is fixed it takes away the need for parents to provide driving lessons/house deposits etc because the children can afford to provide for themselves. This isn't some 'we can't afford it' fantasy either, it's perfectly possible and was in the past, we just have to vote for it. A good start would be a massive council house building programme.

And somebody said upthread that money doesn't buy happiness,
true, but poverty absolutely does buy misery.

Thank god my mum never read MN beforeshe had me and got influenced by this nonsense. There will be humans on this planet for thousands more years and those that are will be equally grateful.

That's exactly what I meant. The planet is going to be absolutely fine. Humans may not be, but the planet will be.

I don't agree, unless you think it's already too late and everyone will be dead in 30 years (which I don't) then we need more people. People concerned about the environment tend to raise other humans concerned about the environment, which is a good thing. Otherwise the only people who procreate are going to be climate change deniers. How is that helpful?

It sounds like you are more educated than your parents so you can give them an advantage other what you had. Expensive extracurricular activities can be OTT. Children need time to be children. It does depend where you live though. I grew up poor but happy due to ideal location and with a RP accent enforced! Accents are a lot more celebrated these days though!
My DP has done better than me though career wise and he grew up rich when young then very very poor(no food level of poor) due to tragedy.

I do think it’s too late. Children being born now will have to live in circumstances that are unbearable by current standards, they’re not going to be dead in 30 years.

I'm not sure I agree with this either if I'm honest. "Unbearable by current standards" - I mean - in that case, how would they know better? Human beings are amazingly resilient and adaptable, and even in terrible, awful situations there is still humanity, kindness and laughter.

However I still don't think that children in the developed world are likely to be living in "unbearable" circumstances in 30 years' time.

It’s you who’s set an arbitrary 30 year limit, some of us take a long term view. The developed world is already seeing unprecedented levels of immigration, as parts of the world close to the equator continue to heat up this will increase. I’m sick of climate change deniers trivialising its effects which are already impacting on us.

Excuse me, I am not a climate change denier. Not thinking humanity is utterly doomed in the short term (and by the short term in mean within the next 100 years) - which, btw, many well respected climate scientists agree with, including Michael Mann - does not equal "climate change denial".

Telling people everyone is doomed and there is no hope is, as a strategy to evoke action, not a great one.

If it makes them think twice about the most damaging thing they could possibly do, ie add to the population, it’s a very good one. The world’s population is constantly rising, the last thing we need is more people.

Its convenient to think that though, not that I hope you aren't right I hope you are but its human nature to think things will work out and be fine but if you actually look at what the modelling shows it isn't all fine and many even think the modelling is too optimistic as its almost impossible to take into account the cumulative effect of all the various feedback loops and tipping points we are already seeing occur. If I were already a parent I'd want to look on the bright side to.

Theres a difference between not having kids because the world is overpopulated and not having them because you think their lives will be unbearably bad. But both reasons are flawed. The first because whetheror not you have kids makes as much difference as a mosquitos fart in a hurricane. The second reason is flawed because you're infantilising your offspring. They are future humans, able to make the best of their circumstances just like every other person who has ever lived. Sure many of those people suffered, but did they not also find times of joy, times they laughed, loved, cared and helped each other? When did any of those people, even in their darkest hours say that they wished they had never been born?

Right, so then all hope is NOT lost, right, because if it was it really wouldn't matter how many children people had as it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference anyway.

If I was planning kids - I'm not - and I read something like that I'd think, well, whatever, if humanity is doomed anyway what does it matter?

When did any of those people, even in their darkest hours say that they wished they had never been born?

When they were 14, almost certainly

It is quite taboo to admit to this but there are a minority who would say they would rather not be born (and maybe more who have been tranquilised out of the feeling with antidepressants). Just look up anti natalists.

Sure, there are people who wish they hadn’t been born, but as parents can’t time travel to check this ahead of time before conceiving, I’m not sure what the point is — don’t ever have a child in case that child has an unhappy life?

"I'd say life for most people in the UK is now immeasurably more affluent than when I was a working class child in the '60s"

Possibly. It depends how you measure wealth. Yes, we have more stuff, and more cheap electronic goods, and so on, but our quality of life is much worse than it was in the '60s. For a start, there's just no flippin room. You can't move. Not only are there far too many people, the pace of life is speeding up. I'm in the south east, and at times I feel like I'm suffocating. The traffic is awful. So bad, in fact, that I hardly bother going out. My local woods have been hacked down to make way for a new housing estate, and a second massive estate is being built at the other end of the village that is more like a new town.

In 1960, there were three billion humans. Today there are eight billion, and we're heading for ten. I know someone will say that the birth rate is dropping, but that's only true in Europe. Africa's birth rate is so high their population is going to double by 2050. Plus, of course, people are living longer. Add climate change into that mix, and you've got a disaster on your hands. I'd swap DVD players and microwaves and central heating for more space and silence and green fields.

All of us lucky enough to be born have got those unknown number of years on this planet to experience life to witness it, to discover it, to be a part of it and to find their place in it. To be a friend, to make a difference. People in different times and places have always lived through hard times and though we don't know all their names we know that many people struggled, suffered and gave their lives to causes that were greater than themselves. We need those people more than ever and I hope my children and their children are those sorts of people and one day a new spring for humanity arrives after people realise what selfishness cost them

That’s all very lovely but it’s all a bit too new age for my taste. I’m a cynic.