I tell them that commenting on someone's parenting, as though you have any experience or wisdom in the matter, is a bit like a white person telling a black person how to cope with racism.
Edit: oh look, here they come to give me their abundant wisdom.
So, I fundamentally think that all the parents who hate how others give advice are potentially just hypersensitive. Okay, really? Most of the non-parents are probably giving crappy thoughtless advice. I haven;'t experienced that too much myself, but I'm sure it happens.
In my case, I've always been very thoughtful about these things and I have lots of experience teaching young kids, so I knew far more than average about raising kids prior to having my own.
Still, I don't agree with the claim that non-parents have no wisdom here.
Also aggravating: parents who call childless couples selfish. Like not spitting one out is somehow cheating life, and having kids makes you a kinder person. Both sides are equally self-interested, neither are totally selfless or selfish.
I'll concede that a lot of parents will shift their energy from themselves to their child's well-being, but that's where the selflessness ends and they often become a sinkhole for other people's energy. They're gifting no one except their own inner circle, which is fine - that's how life works for most people.
Existing social and fiscal expectations have a certain birth rate built in.
There is probably an ideal population count, but without actually figuring out what that count is and showing we're below it, that's not a worthwhile discussion.
School districts benefit from childless residents who pay taxes to support schools but don't impose any costs.
Also, there are many ways to contribute to the development of young generations other than simply having biological children. Even aside from adopting, lots of childless people I've known have been great mentors and teachers.
(Not that you'd necessarily disagree, just your post could kind of be interpreted that way).
Regardless, consider that your future comfort relies on someone else having a child. When you're old and everyone who cares for you is younger than you, thank those who had children and raised them well enough to be able to care for you.
It's great that you have kids but it's not like a it's a public service you're performing. Unless you adopted a bunch or something. We can always get younger immigrants to come fulfil those jobs.
My parents have served me more than any other human.
I am so glad our African neighbours still fuck like rabbits, in order to produce an extra +20 million people every year, on a land (and a society political organisation) that cannot support half of them, destabilising all countries there by internal migrations; and another million or so having to move to Europe every year, destabilising the social systems there which are not designed to accommodate such influx.
I'm so glad that people keep pretending the demographic problem is a supposed decrease in population when it is actually always increasing, and the continuous increase is the problem. I'm so glad they use 2-century old rhetoric on demographics and do not notice that there has been a small change in productivity per human being since those days.
People who don't have kids are no less selfish than I am, either - there's a reason any individual chooses to have kids or not, and the only moderately selfless reason (population control) is still selfish because you are making the choice for your own convictions.
The decision to have children or not is selfish period, everyone should stop giving a fuck about what choice they made, because none of them are "correct".
1. Do you produce kids?
2. Given your qualities as a potential parent, are your kids likely to produce more for society than they take?
If you answer those in the same way, you are not selfish. If your answers don't match, then you are.
Question 2 has virtually infinite factors impacting it, making it useless in any practical sense.
How about those who participate in activities that enrich the lives of others, such as volunteering, teaching, or giving aid?
What if their country has an overpopulation problem resulting in major constraints on resources and infrastructure?
It also ignores the fact that the vast majority of people don't make new humans as a selfless public service, thus "selfish" takes on a new definition which can be translated as "doing what people do", at which point it loses all meaning.
In poor countries making new humans is a necessity, in rich countries it's a natural desire, and in all cases it's a fundamental human right even if the offspring take more than they give as everyone is a product of circumstance. Exercising the option to not make any is equally valid.
In other words, yeah, not being a pilot and lacking contextual knowledge of the helicopter DOES mean, at the very least, that you don"t know WHO fucked up - the pilot, the mechanic, the manufacturer, the designer, or whether the poor sucker just got shot down.
This is everything that's wrong with software today, and I mean that seriously.
What the poster said is "someone fucked up". He didn't say "the pilot fucked up".
If there is a mechanical failure on that helicopter while it's in flight, someone MOST DEFINITELY FUCKED UP. There are processes in place surrounding that helicopter specifically to make sure that pilot never has to make the decision of putting said helicopter upside down in a tree.
In otherwords, someone dun fucked up, and you don't have to be a helicopter pilot or helicopter mechanic, or a helicopter engineer, or anything related to any of it, to be able to identify that someone somewhere fucked up.
Experience did not make me a better programmer or mathematician. Diving deep into the details to get a much better knowledge did.
Update typo
In fact, I'm actually skeptical about the effect of parenting in general, versus the influence of genetics.
The teacher is not up in the middle of the night with the child when they have strep throat. The teacher is not up in the middle of the night when their child has a nightmare. These are the sorts of things that only happen when you are a parent.
I understand your what you're saying, but this argument works against the argument that parents are automatically qualified by virtue of experience: a mother of a 2-year-old has no experience raising a 3-year-old either.
A childless teacher is a pseudo-parent 8-3:30, 5 days a week, 9 months a year. They honestly havent got a clue. They can head home and chill. While parenting is an endless grind.
Kids will wedge into every spare moment and literally consume all the space, physical and mental energy.
Try spending all night up with 3 kids with the stomach flu then having your boss push you to meet a deadline the next day.
These teachers, including my mother in-law can keep their `advice`.
Is a parent of a single 2-year old really more qualified or experienced than someone who has 15 years of experience caring for siblings?
I have no kids (and I don't want any), but I'm radically pro-freedom for the kids. So the boundary is not to be parents vs. not-parents, but people who desire safety vs. people who desire freedom.