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.

I strongly disagree that not being part of the 1% is a valid reason not to have children.

In the case of some of these posts I think you might benefit from moving to a different and possibly cheaper city (particularly if you live in London) and finding a different set of friends who are less materialistic and didn’t all go to Oxbridge (which I assume is what we’re talking about). I’ve been in that bubble and I know it can make people feel very inadequate and unhappy, but there’s a whole fulfilling world out there if you step outside it.

I didn't say it was 'a good' reason. I said that it was MY reason. When it comes to not having children, any reason is valid as it is not actually compulsory. Have you ever read any of those Buzzfeed threads about people who were ambivalent about having children and then went ahead and had them anyway, because they felt it was somehow expected of them? Bit of an eye opener. These people (90% of them women) felt trapped, resentful of their kids and the loss of their freedom, and impoverished. I would feel the same unless I had enough money for a LOT of care, a good boarding school, and a lot of extras as well. People have different priorities in life and that's ok. People who constantly say 'it's the simple things that count' are annoying IMO. They should speak for themselves, not for everyone else.

I know having kids isn’t compulsory (I don’t have them), and if your point is that you wouldn’t want to have them without the money to outsource a lot of the care to other people, then fair enough. But your original post didn’t say that, it seemed more to do with feeling inadequate due to not having met a very specific and unusual set of standards. Of course that’s your prerogative, and I’m sorry if it comes across as patronising or self-righteous or whatever to say that seems to me a shame, that’s not how I mean it. FWIW I wouldn’t say ‘it’s the simple things that count’ because I didn’t feel like leaving London etc had to do with focusing on simple things, it was more like having more space and freedom to think about complex things once 50% of my brain wasn’t being taken up with worry about insane property prices, and the ES magazine telling me to spend £2,000 on a new jacket on the tube ride home, and etc. But that’s me, and if different things are important to you then different things are important. I guess all I’m trying to say is that, for me, a change of context made me realise that what was important to me wasn’t necessarily what I had thought it was. YMMV.

You absolutely have every right to not want kids for whatever reason but the boarding school bit threw me - you know most kids wouldn't even want to go to boarding school??

It’s a sorry state of affairs but I think lots feel like the OP hence the birth rates.

Maybe think about what kind of life your prospective child might have. To be realistic, money makes even bad situations easier. A lot of these people experienced ACEs, trauma, etc etc. Even then you can’t guarantee your child will be happy or healthy, it is just something to consider before bringing another human into the world.

Yeah I kind of agree though not with a boarding school unless they are teens who want to go.

Patenting looks way easier with enough money and opportunities for the children.

I hear you OP. I definitely wish I could have had 3+ kids, but the economic outlook is so bleak that it wouldn't be fair.

You sound quite depressed.

Don't be intimidated by the middle classes. And don't chase them, thinking you have to have everything they have in order to thrive. Most of them are chasing each other.

That list of must haves, put it to one side. It's not a recipe for happiness, not for you or any children you might have. It's just what you've put together from observing the bourgeoisie. It's not meaningful.

You already have a lot - education, a professional job, a steady marriage. Build on that however you please. Who cares where you fit in? Pretty much every one of those people you're looking at and wanting to fit in with are all anxious about losing fit themselves through some economic or social disaster which at some level they fear they are one step away from. It's all an appearance, an illusion. If you don't/can't match an appearance, does that matter a damn?

Enjoy your life, have kids or not as you please, concentrate on the people you love and don't measure yourself against some shifting and amorphous view of success.

It's true there is a vast difference between the expectations we were brought up with and the reality we now live in.

I remember when I was growing up my dad would say to me "if you work hard and do well at school and get good results in your exams and go to university and get a good job, you won't have to live in a house like that" (pointing to some rougher areas as we drove past).

His snobbery aside, I did all of the above (incurring the corresponding university debt) and houses like "that" are all I can afford to live in - as part of a house share!!

When you're told all your life "do this and you'll be fine" and then you're not fine, it is a depressing prospect because to be fine is out of your reach through circumstances beyond your control.

sounds like a joyful way to live, and if you're right, well you won't end up any more or less doomed than the rest of us for being cynical.

I hear you. I always thought there would be a natural progression through the generations. Doesn’t seem like it now. I agree about contacts and networks. I didn’t have those either. My kids are getting by because they’re bright but it’s much more of a struggle for them. I feel sad that someone with your achievements feels parenthood is ill advised. Your future children would make an important contribution to a balanced, safer society.