Is having children a moral duty? - Moral Maze

[poppymango]

Not an AIBU but I don’t quite know where else to put it - I just listened to this on BBC Sounds and I found it fascinating and at times a little infuriating. I thought it would make for a good discussion/debate!

“Is having children a moral duty?”

Featuring Ash Sarkar, Sarah Ditum, Giles Fraser, Mona Siddiqui, James Orr, Caroline Farrow, Prof Anna Rotrich, and Prof Lisa Schipper.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002db9t?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Absolutely fascinated to hear the opinions of other mumsnetters.

David Starkey not on it anymore? Would be more interesting if he was, though disagreeing probably with most of his views.

I wanted to listen to this but I just can't suffer Ash Sarkar

Having not listened to this - I might try and answer the question... because it is very interesting. I'm very uneasy with the idea of having children being a moral duty. However, I believe we have a moral duty to become the sort of person who will naturally want to have children.

No. In fact, I think it's a moral duty not to have children that you don't have capacity to look after, cherish and support. We may have a declining birth rate but we also have a problem with children (turning into adults) who never had the upbringing and childhood that every person deserves.

Blackmailing, bullying and guilt-tripping people into becoming parents will only lead to more traumatised and hurt people - and that doesn't benefit them as individuals or society at large.

Ah, the latest in the fashionable trend of guilt tripping women. No, we are not the Stepford Wives.

No. Provided you can care for them, choosing to have children is a morally neutral act that people choose because they believe it will add to their personal happiness in some way.

It's not the Handmaid tales, we don't suffer from a worldwide infertility crisis (yet).
So no, no moral duty at all.

Would the world be a better place with less human on it? Yes.

I haven’t listened but I’m a no in answer to the question.

Of course it's not, what a load of nonsense

This. I wouldn’t listen to this persons opinion on anything.

However, I believe we have a moral duty to become the sort of person who will naturally want to have children.

That's a pretty weird and offensive statement. Why would becoming the sort of person who will naturally want to have children' be any kind of moral duty, or in fact be in any way better than being the type of person who will naturally not want to have children?

Where's the morality in either position? Or are we doing that lazy old trope about the childfree being selfish and having no stake in the world and its future, while parents are giving, nurturing activists who work tirelessly to make the world a better place because their offspring will have to live in it?

That makes 3 of us.

Moral duty to who? Yourself? Humans? All life? The planet?

No. It isn't a moral duty. Its a biological function.

Exactly.

I was contently childfree till just before I turned 40, when we decided to have a child and did so. I can assure anyone who is wondering that I am exactly the same person in essence in the 13 years since I had my child than I was for the 20 odd adult years I lived before I had him.

Well, if you expect there to be people paying taxes to fund the NHS in your old age and to provide the services you'll need then SOMEONE needs to produce those kids.

We are fortunate people wasn't to move here so we could import these people. But maybe in future they won't want to move here if its changed so much by the immigration.

I can see why it could be a moral obligation. But lots of people woukd like more kids, it needs to be a more attractive choice.

Absolutely not.

I applaud people who decide not to have kids - it’s a massive responsibility so if you’re heart isn’t in it then it’s best not to do it and potentially fuck someone else up.

Having children is ultimately a selfish act. I am a parent and do not see it as moral. There is a moral obligation to do your best but that’s as far as the morality goes.

No. For most people it's an emotional and biological urge. We don't owe anyone children, and there's no moral duty to spread your genetics and continue the survival of the species. I suppose it's a kind of biological duty, but I think humans have enough intelligence to think about it on a deeper level than that.

This 🙂

You can care about the economic impact (having children = good), or the environmental impact (having children = bad), but it's very difficult to balance the two.
So through which lense would the 'morality' aspect be viewed?

I'm in favour of the human species dying out.
We don't need to be here.
War, rape, murder, violence... all manner of atrocities. Women are the (vast, vast majority of the time) victims, men are the (vast, vast majority of the time) the perps. Regardless, illness and disability can beset any of us at any point.

It's a lot of suffering.

The human race should die out I.M.O.

That said, as we are here now, we best make the most of it! But for me, this has obviously never meant having kids.

An unpopular opinion and perspective, I'm sure.

Thanks for posting OP, I may give this a listen!

A society needs to have sufficient children born to each generation in order to self-sustain. Those without children, just like those with children, rely on the younger generations' economic contributions to support them. Those who can and does choose to have children, usually at a significant financial cost, are sholdering the burden.

I say this as someone who is child free, through choice.

However, decades of right wing economic policy has made having children extremely financially burdensome, as it has other life milestones.

My DP and I are in the top 5% for household income but neither of us come from well-off families, and we weren't able to buy our first house and car until our late 30s (albeit, we both had fairly prolonged studies, and loans to cover them, to obtain the qualifications that have given us good salaries and, of course, we had far more modest salaries towards the start of our careers). If we had decided to have children, a home would have felt unattainable.

Of course, the extent of financial pressures vary depending on where you live (for us, its Vancouver, which is at the extreme end for housing costs) but they're present for everyone.

Is it a morally good thing to have children (in light of current birth rate trends)? Absolutely. But the primary moral failing that is causing the birth rate crisis (and is starting to push some countries to the brink of demographic and societal collapse) is on those who have failed to address the disastrously-uncontrolled capitalism that has favored the mega-rich to the detriment of the majority of society.

Not listened to it but the other view could be it"s more moral not to have them. Not only does it give other species a chance to thrive, if the human race were to varnish, it would prevent human suffering. When we bring children into this life, its giving them the grim gift of death too.

Would it do the planet any harm if humans became extinct? No. Would it be of detriment to most other living things if we dissapeared? No.

Unless you feel similarly about other animal species, many of which display behaviours that are similarly or even more abhorrent, by the standards of human morality, I think you're being a smidge unfair to humanity here.

That said, if you cited humanity's environmental impact instead of war, rape, murder and violence, I think that'd be a much fairer point.

I don't think a lion or dolphin has the ability to debate what is morally wrong or not, so you cannot compare other species behaviours to ours. But who knows. Maybe they do and we're just clueless.