We had a population explosion during the last 200 years that’s only just starting to taper off. I was taught about it in school 30 years ago, except back then it was called a “demographic transition” and it was hailed as a sign of a country becoming economically prosperous. The “fertility crisis” is a moral panic manufactured by neoliberal capitalists.
Where I live, it’s a thousand dollars a month to rent A ROOM. The not particularly nice one bedroom apartments closest to where I live are 1700 a month. Food has never been more expensive. How people supposed to afford kids which are notoriously expensive to have?
its not because I’m selfish, its because I hate people
Economy is probably the most commonly cited reason, but the world being a shithole has to be up there somewhere.
“I can’t even take care of myself, but I’m going to bring a bunch of children into the world to suffer my consequences anyway.”
No, THAT shit is selfish.
I mean, I decided to not have kids because I don’t want to subject anyone to the existential horror that is life, and I feel no obligation to crank out miniature replicas of me.
My logic is along the same line.
I didn’t ask to be here, nobody asked if I wanted to be here. Being here, I kinda wish I was given that choice so I could say no.
Why would I force someone, who I supposedly love, to suffer through gestures at everything this? I love my potential children more than to condemn them to dealing with the children of those wealthy enough to have them.
There are some who believe that choosing to come here is like the show Severance.
You in the beforelife chose to come here for reasons unknown. You in the present life forgot all about that. And when you die, you will resume being the you of the beforelife, meaning the present you won’t get any justice.
Which is why some believe we’re on a prison planet.
I default to mindless math bubble does a chemistry. So long as there is no evidence of anything else, we’re just obliterated when we die and there’s no before or after.
But this place sure does suspiciously resemble some form of Hell.
We let the worst of us decide how life should be, it was not some natural order, cosmic inevitability, or resource scarcity, someone actively decided they can’t be happy, unless everyone else is miderable, and we believed their lies.
… it’s mostly because I know I’d be a shitty parent. I don’t want to damage them.
Technically correct. It’s selfish not to have anything because we’re broke. The alternative is going to debt and not paying it: it’s selfless in the sense you’re putting yourself in a worse position
Also… the future kinda sucks.
And it isn’t looking better.
Unfortunately, the people who don’t see the issue with the future are also the most likely to have more children who will likely also not see an issue with the future.
There’s also an entire subgroup that just don’t think that far. One of my very working class friends group has 3 kids, but when asked about his thoughts on the future has said things like “the climate is fucked anyway.” Somehow it hasn’t occurred to him his children have to live in that future…
Meanwhile these boomers have multiple houses, affordable insurance, savings…
Very few help their kids.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians are still having kids.
Westerners: “This world is too horrific!”
Uhhh… Having a baby is one of the most selfish things a person can do. They’re choosing not to foster or adopt. They’re doing the exact worst thing they can do for the environment.
And why are they doing it? Because they like kids, or because they want a family, or because they want someone to take care of them when they’re old. All selfish reasons.
My favorite reason, they want someone that looks like them. Heard that when I said I’d consider adopting, the other person was like “but don’t you want someone who looks like you?!”
Uh, no, my cat looks nothing like me but I still somehow mustered empathy for it. I don’t understand why people feel like they would love an adopted kid less, and it makes them horrible people.
Its fundamental to the urge to reproduce. Its literally the driving force of evolution.
And it shows that they haven’t evolved at all past it.
There is quite literally exactly zero evolutionary pressure to “evolve past it”, since any gene that makes its carrier more likely to care for others children than to have their own will quite quickly be removed from the gene pool.
Correct. There’s no evolutionary reason to. That’s why I chose the wording, that people should evolve emotionally past their basic instincts and learn empathy for others. I’m literally saying that falling back to basic human instincts and saying “why should I care for others” makes them horrible people.
Too many people are no different than animals. They reproduce just to reproduce. There is no regard for their situation, their competence or the impact on greater society. But these primitive people are more into “muh lineage”.
Savages, obeying their primal instincts like that. Next they’ll be trying to eat food and avoid predators.
Nothing wrong with sex but having kids is not a necessity like eating and safety. You would think people would be able to rationalize this day and age that having kids is a drawback for most of us and the planet.
^This 100%
Finances aside, it’s still not selfish.
My father would beg to differ. Some of the things I’ve heard: “who’s going to take care of you when you’re old”, “the
undesirableimmigrants with 5+ children will take overand ruin Europe”. He also told me I was being selfish when I was barely 18 for stating I didn’t want to have children because carrying a child for 9 months and childbirth terrify me. That shit still terrifies me to this day, on top of all the other reasons why I still don’t want to have children.Also, according to him the feelings a parent has for their child are “unexplainable”. That must be why my mom and and his mom were more a part of my childhood than he was!
Having a kid can be selfish.
Can be? I don’t think it’s possible to selflessly have children.
I argue that both are selfish decisions, but having a kid eventually drags someone else into that didn’t consent.
I wrote a blog post about it after I got a vasectomy. I’m not an anti-natalist but I think its a point to consider.
That was a great read, thanks for sharing 💜
Proud owner of a tubal litigation here, no kids. I can’t consciously bring one into this world. Took me 15 years after I started asking for one at age 27 for insurance to give me one though. I was finally considered “old enough” to not change my mind about it. Yet another reason under the “this world” stack of reasons.
That’s a crazy time frame.
I said in September “I would like a vascectomy”
And I got one in December. Insurance covered it. No questions.
Vasectomies aren’t reversible either apparently. They took a chunk of tube out of each ball and all I had to say was “Yes I’m sure. No no one is compelling me”
The sexism of the medical field is insane to me.
I had to convince my primary care physician for a vasectomy. At almost 40. With two kids. He was on the fence about saying yes or no (and I am a military aviator, so I don’t get to have second opinions or choose my doctor). Ultimately he gave his blessing, but it was still a “what the fuck, it’s my goddamn decision, I just need you to write the referral.”
So it happens to men as well, just not as frequently (or as condescendingly, usually).
Thank you, more ppl are realizing that now, I think
What’s wrong with being selfish? I didn’t want kids, full-time kids are annoying and a huge responsibility. If someone doesn’t desire children, it’s very much ok to dedicate the energy and resources of raising several kids to themselves.
People are selfish, reproducing doesn’t exempt you from being selfish, people can have kids for selfish reasons too.
I admit sometimes I’ve thought it would have been cool to raise a human from zero, trying to make them a good person, and be a demigod to them on their first years because they didn’t know better; but I still think the world needs less people, not more. Since the 70s we were warned about overpopulation and the environment, and we just added another 4 billion people anyway.
Edit: thank you for the correction, kind stranger.
1970 world pop was 3.6B. 2025 8.2B
We just added another 4.6B
Largely in the global south who will be migrating to the West en masse
What exactly do those cardinal directions mean on an oblate spheroid?
It’s not just the money, it’s also the low value of human life and knowing the world just wants more bodies for the
meetmeat grinder.Society had always been optimistic about the long term future until recently.
JFC, people were having kids during the bubonic plague, Chinese revolts that killed millions and through two world wars. People are having kids in Ukraine and Palestine, right now.
“No! The world is too harsh!”
Up until the early 2000s, it really did look like the future would be better. Sure, wages have been stagnant since the 80s, but it really looked like with a lot of smarts and a little luck, you could land a great job and be set.
And then job security quietly went away as well.
Corporate “persons” on the other hand are thriving.
You get more of what Congress, and states subsidize through tax breaks.
“meat grinder”.
meet grinder
is a different thing.
Notably distinct from Grindr meat
Meet Grindr meat!
Also more intelligent; back then people just had kids whether they were broke or not.
Stupidity == Altruism ???
You got it the wrong way round. 100 years ago, people were having kids precisely because they were broke.
100 years ago, if you had kids you had to feed them for 5-7 years and then they’d be adding to the family income. They’d be working the fields or the mines or in factories or any other job like that.
And when you got old, the only thing standing between you and dieing from being worked to death in the poor house was having kids that would take you in and support you.
Today the math is flipped on its head: You have to support your kids until at least 18, more likely 25 or 30 until they make it through education. Then they don’t contribute to your household income at all because they have their own household. And when you are old you get retirement benefits and live off the work of everyone else’s children too.
So 100 years ago, if you didn’t care about children and were broke, math told you to have kids.
Today, if you don’t care about children (no matter if you are broke), math tells you to not have kids.
Simple as that.
And since these changes happened gradually and society adapts its standards slowly, it’s been a gradual shift.
“But all my friends are having kids and I feel like I am missing out while they chat.”
Yes, FOMO is old.
What do you mean you don’t want to raise the next generation of wage slaves? How will my children buy their second yachts?
