What's up with all this "Having children is bad, you will regret it. get a dog" mentality lately?
On top of that though it seems like requirements for parenting have gone through the roof. Between helicopter parenting and all the activities one is supposed to do these days the effort must have gone up tremendously.
But what's surprising about that "mentality"? Breeding is something some people indeed come to regret, and having the self-awareness to recognize that likelihood in one's self leads to better outcomes for the not-parent and the not-child[1].
A big part of what what I've seen in having these discussions is people resenting those who made different choices. A lot of people follow a script - get married around this age, acquire home, make a kid or two once you can afford the tax privileged accounts, etc. Some of those people resent those who saw they can write their own script and fail to look unhappy about it.
[1] I always hear, "but what if you're wrong?" To which I reply with some variant of, "You should go to medical school. Sure, you're a bit old for that, it is expensive, a huge, somewhat risky commitment, an enormous change in your life for a long time, and you think you'd hate being a doctor. But what if you're wrong?"
I guess I should go with "you should go to engineering school"
As far back as June 2014, Pope Francis spoke about this phenomenon.
This is actually the main reason why I've never been so worried about those overpopulation predictions, or worried about what happens if the technology starts allowing us to live hundreds of years.
Well, if we knew for sure that we would live 500 years (and continue to be young and health), nobody in their right mind would want a kid at 30. And you'd likely still be able to die from accidents for the next 100-200 years.
I think this might be one of those things like atheism, where your ideology becomes generally accepted enough that you forget you're not being rebellious anymore.
Beyond medicine and the fact that it's less violent than 200 years ago, it would be incredibly hard to argue we now live in healthy societies.
Sorry, can you help me parse this sentence?
My point is that folks who have the "get a dog" mentality are supporting the forces that make child rearing increasingly burdensome.
Perhaps it is both? These things tend to be cyclic. "Fuck it" tends to breed conditions where more people say "fuck it."
That said, I do believe in something like a "get a dog and help care for the community" mentality that's not a "fuck it" at all.
If you have children you do it for them, not for yourself.
And there are better, more predictable ways to leave a legacy. Having a kid is a shot in the dark; sure maybe they'll cure cancer, but maybe they'll be the next hitler, or more likely, they'll be an average joe with no lasting impact on humanity.