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Comment by peterangular | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotal: Many folks in my social circles are just less willing to accept the real responsibility of raising a child. We're all late-20-somethings/early 30-somethings and I have the conversation all the time with people who want to wait until things like careers are established, until they have a chance to seriously travel a bit, and most commonly they just want to enjoy a relationship without the stress of kids. Kids are an insanely huge responsibility, and to parent right all of your life priorities change completely.

Also, with religious stresses being almost non-existent in the groups I run in I feel like people aren't jumping into legally-binding marriages which causes the baby thing to be pushed down the road until they find someone they want to forge a lifelong relationship with. I think it's a super good thing when people take their time to find the right relationship for them!

All-in-all I've noticed a big generational gap in thinking on this one because all I hear from tons of older relatives is "sooo when you guys getting married?" ...or even pushing for children before the fact. It feels unnatural and downright weird to field those questions and it's neigh impossible to explain "we're just taking our time to enjoy this thing and not rushing into huge commitments with marriage or kids..."

We're just taking our time trying to do the right thing for us really... I just wish people would stop calling us selfish for that.

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I'm a little older, and while I wouldn't be worried about what strangers think about your choices, you may find your own perspective change if you have kids.

I know in my circle of friends and favily, we waited longer than we wanted do due to things out of our control, but ended up being about "average" age for having a first child in our circle. Many of our circle who waited until late 30s/early 40s are very torn up with having waited, as the reality that they are going to miss certain things sets in.

Life moves fast, and our modern world tends to make you prioritize things that don't really matter. Your relatives may be annoying, but in most cases, they are probably trying to express how they grew to feel. From my personal pov, watching or working with my 8 year old isn't some obligation that I have to do, it's incredible and more relevant to me that some stupid IT project that I'll barely remember in 10 years.

If I come off as preachy, I don't intend it and apologize. I just found that the "eyeroll factor" for how 39 year old me sees 29 year old me was much higher than how 29 year old me looked back at 19 year old me!

And it's multi-generational.

I'm 40 and my youngest is 3. By the time he's an adult, I'll be 55. If he has kids at 40, I'll be 77 and will never really know his kids, let alone see them grow up.

I'd never recommend having kids at 18 but looking more and more like 25-30 is the "right" age.

no matter what, there will be an n+1 generation of your offspring that you will never meet. my dad was a few years older than you when I (the first child) was born. he'll probably never know my children as adults or meet his great-grandchildren. on the other hand, having a well-established career at the time, he was able to provide much more for my brother and me than he could have if he were 25-30. maybe the material stuff doesn't matter so much, but he had also attained a lot of flexibility in his work schedule by that age. despite being a very busy person, he was able to walk us to school every day and roll into the office around 11am ("flexible hours" generally did not exist in his line of work at the time). he was also able to retire before my brother finished middle school, so he was around for much more of our late childhood than other dads. now I'm in the early phase of my own career and I can get advice from someone who's already lived through a full cycle.

My father lived to 86, and got to know his grandchildren. The youngest was born when he was 64, the youngest when he was 69. I guess it depends on what you mean "really know".

64 and 77 are pretty far apart. At 86, the grandkid would then be 9 years old.

My dad lived to be 86, and my kids are 7 & 9. There definitely wasn't enough time to form a deep relationship. He enjoyed their company, but they weren't too interested in getting to know him, and in the final few years of his life he was slowing down considerably so it's easy to understand why. He was 77 when my daughter was born, just like the example from GP.

I was vacationing in Spain and made friends with my Airbnb hosts: they invited me over for dinners in their house. He was 73 and his biological son was 6 or 7. The boy looked very bright. His wife was I think 44.

I often feel like this is frowned upon in the US, while in many countries it’s completely normal. Of course in the US the famous and the rich get a pass.

I’m pushing 50 and haven’t had kids. I want to and expect to, probably in a couple years. I tell myself I’ll be starting my first family at the age where many people start their second.

Any healthy child raised with love is a huge plus in the universe.

There are significant biological risks to having kids late in life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternal_age_effect

I'm aware of this -- obviously nature wants you to get breeding early, but I would argue that you should weigh the risks and the benefits, including benefits to the kids based on your ability to be good parents.

This is probably[0] an even bigger consideration for women[1] but in many societies that's not stopping them from having kids in their late 40's.

I guess I wasn't clear in my post: I think the US frowns on significant age differences (>10y maybe?) in relationships, with exceptions for the rich and famous who are expected to do what they want. Probably other societies share this prejudice. Many do not. I have no idea whether this prejudice extends to children.

[0]: based on common assumptions, and Wikipedia for lack of a better source right now.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_maternal_age

[Edit: clarification re: wikipedia]

"it's incredible and more relevant to me that some stupid IT project that I'll barely remember in 10 years."

You are comparing your kids to your IT projects. Maybe you should instead compare it to things you really are passionate about in life. If you don't have those then it certainly makes sense how children could have easily filled that void.

What examples do you have in mind?

I think that’s the GP post’s point.

A quick post doesn't capture nuance well for something like this. My peers felt alot of pressure to advance careers very quickly.

Especially women. My cousin is a physician, so basically lost her 20s completely to work. Even being in a relationship almost felt irresponsible to her for a long time because of the pressures and the potential to move anywhere in the country.

A good friend ended up being a high-flyer at a big consulting company -- he always wanted what was over the next hill from a career point of view, and that impacted his relationships.

You're describing my Uncle. Went to college, got married, got the corporate job and started working his way up aggressively. And wife divorced him because he wasn't there there. All his GF's eventually went away for the same reason. He's retired now. Not really anyone spend day to day with.

You got it the wrong way around IMO. It's those other things that "fill the void" from not having children. Having children, for most people, is basically the most meaningful and lasting thing they can possibly do with their lives. Nothing else is even in the same order of magnitude.

I think it's deeply patronizing and bordering on armchair psychology to assert that people who fully commit themselves to something that isn't having children as just "filling the void".

I've always seen it the other way around. People start families and have children prematurely because it's a trivial way to create meaning and dependency and something to fall back on.

Instead of seeing other pursuits as compensation for having children I feel the family is often the compensation or a sort of insurance in contrast to doing something completely on your own, which is a much scarier thing in many ways.

> I think it's deeply patronizing and bordering on armchair psychology to assert

The reverse assertion is even more so, IMO. It's also an evolutionary dead end. Your extensive postage stamp collection is not going to move humanity forward.

as one other poster has pointed out this seems like a silly strawman. Meaningful goals involve scientific pursuits, artistic pursuits, leading organisations or being engaged in a community, not collecting postage stamps.

In fact these are the things that move humanity forward, it's not reproduction that advances human culture in any meaningful way. Isaac Newton didn't have children, but of course his contribution to human society is imeasurable.

Evolution of human society isn't led by biological reproduction, it's led by cultural reproduction.

And we've had maybe about ~10 people as impactful as Newton, in the last ~500 years. Is the typical person amenable to those all-or-nothing odds?

I only have to be meaningful to myself. If I can do that without kids, great.. if kids are what makes it meaningful, great.

There is a time dimension to this as well, especially for women. By the time you decide you want kids, you might not be able to have them.

The trouble with counterfactual history is that it's very easy to come up with one's own version. What if, for example, Newton's parents never had children? Or what if they never had children, but someone other than Newton invented the same, or better, things? And from there it quickly branches out to things that are combinatorially incomprehensible.

At a macro level, fertility ratio below 2 (much more than 2 at the time, actually, since a lot of children died, but 2 is more self-explanatory) in Newton's England, however, would mean that England as we know it today would not exist, and some other nation that procreates better but perhaps doesn't value math and science as much, would take its place. From there: no computers, no United States, no Internet or Moon landings, different outcomes in several large scale wars. Pretty catastrophic, if you ask me.

Attachment theory suggests that our moral underpinning comes from doing what is best for the child.

And the morality of attachment theory is challenging at all stages of life. Having the child is necessary but insufficient to do good. Letting the child relish in uncontrolled impulses is good now and bad later. And so on.

In light of that any assertion of having children being defacto good or not is incomplete without describing the overall society. Evolution is a strawman in this sense; our children do not immediately enter some Darwinian gladiatorial arena of genetic destiny. They are going to sample from the best examples they can find of how to live, and friends, extended families, and ideas echoed through time(as communicated orally, in books and other mediums) all play a part of that. It's not all on the parent, and if it's not all on the parent, then childless adults have a place, an "ought to do something for the child", even if they are not writing King Lear or inventing calculus.

Thinking in terms of absolute "good" or "bad" is a sign of a young, undeveloped mind. Come back to me when you're in your 40s, as I am.

Interesting, 26 year old me was willing to have children some day, 31 year old me was contemplating maybe having kids some day when he gets bored with life, 36 year old me never wants children, is married to someone who never wants children, had a vasectomy, and is still kinda afraid it will fail and he might end up with a kid.

The longer I live and look around the more I realize how annoying and life-ruining kids would be for me. And, while there may be many couples that are happier with kids, the ones that stick out for me are (also many) that either visibly have worse QoL, less happy marriages, etc., and the ones that visibly have stockholm syndrome.

Wow, that is so me. Couldn't wait to get kids in university, just didn't have a partner to do it with. When I met my partner, our lives were not stable enough to support kids in a monetary and emotional sense. Not that we are, I'm mid thirties, see the lack of sleep of friends that do have kids and seriously doubt whether it is worth it.

Somehow I feel we've designed the way we do careers to oppose certain natural processes. I'm not even female, I can't imagine how much uphill the battle is for them.

Interestingly, my experience is exactly opposite. Most of my friends started having kids in late 20's / early 30's and every single one of them is incredibly happy to have them; in fact, some even lament that they didn't have kids sooner.

Well, most might indeed be, but for some, 3 factors I can think of are that...

1) the QoL/unhappy people I notice are mostly due to financial situation - if your friends are all in tech it won't apply; or the fact that one of the parents switched their focus completely onto children and neglects their spouse (and it's not always the wife)

2) you may not know some of them closely enough or see them in regular life. It's not socially acceptable to regret having children or admit it sucks, by word or action.

3) Many are obvious cases of stockholm syndrome. The most obvious example (rare, but imo symptomatic for everyone) is when people say they are blessed to experience having a child with severe disability. I always want to ask (but never will), would you have wished for such a blessing before the kid was born, if given a choice? I could believe someone who says it sucks in many ways but worth it, but when someone claims to feel "blessed" in these circumstances... sure, suit yourself :)

A less obvious one is when people tell you it's great and there are no downsides. Again I can believe people who say they are happy despite the tradeoffs, but sometimes people tell you there basically no downsides to kids; and 3 minutes before/after will tell you how they would like to pick up their abandoned hobbies, how their health is deteriorating due to lack of exercise, they cannot work from home due to distractions, haven't had time for sex in 3 months, haven't slept properly in 3 weeks, ... but there are no downsides!

Thanks for your response.

Agree with your first point - all my friends are in tech with decent incomes.

Disagree about people claiming there are no downsides - people I've seen generally accept the "cost" of kids (monetary, physical, personal etc). But the benefits of kids seem to be outweighing these costs. I agree with you that it is not socially acceptable to regret having kids, so some of them might be lying. Only speaking for myself, I am pretty happy.

And lastly, there is another factor to add to your analysis - the culture. Almost all my friends are immigrants to the US, coming from countries with much higher birth rates and very different attitudes about family or having kids.

> Many are obvious cases of stockholm syndrome. The most obvious example (rare, but imo symptomatic for everyone) is when people say they are blessed to experience having a child with severe disability. I always want to ask (but never will), would you have wished for such a blessing before the kid was born, if given a choice? I could believe someone who says it sucks in many ways but worth it, but when someone claims to feel "blessed" in these circumstances... sure, suit yourself :)

Obviously no parent would wish for a child to be born with a disability. A less cynical and self-centered take on the situation might be that the love and ability to nuture and help that child with challenges has meaningful, unexpected rewards.

> A less obvious one is when people tell you it's great and there are no downsides. Again I can believe people who say they are happy despite the tradeoffs, but sometimes people tell you there basically no downsides to kids; and 3 minutes before/after will tell you how they would like to pick up their abandoned hobbies, how their health is deteriorating due to lack of exercise, they cannot work from home due to distractions, haven't had time for sex in 3 months, haven't slept properly in 3 weeks, ... but there are no downsides!

You're attributing this to kids. People don't just drop all hobbies, stop taking care of themselves, stop having sex or sleeping because a child shows up.

If that all happens, it reflects a level of immaturity and lack of planning that would cause a problem in the face of any adversity.

People should have kids when they are ready, if they are ready. One thing those with kids that are actively encouraging you to have them don't tell you is that life as you knew it is pretty much over. This can be a positive or a negative. I have 2 kids that I very much love and am very grateful to have, the oldest being 8 now. I have been exhausted for 8 years. Everything changes. Even something as simple as running out to the food store means rounding the kids up, finding shoes, finding water bottles, getting them in the car, strapping the youngest one in the car seat. Driving to the store while the kids full on fight about the youngest saying he does not like the oldest's favorite color. Getting to the store, having to say no 15 times to everything they pass and want (plastic dinosaur bowels with built in straw). Waiting in line, having to tell them constantly to stop picking up the candy in the checkout line, etc.

There are definitely great moments, throwing the ball in the yard, hugs, conversations etc. But these don't detract from the overall exhaustion. I would still choose to have my kids every time if provided the option as I love them and could not imagine not having them but don't let anyone talk you into something you are not ready for.

The problem comes on the other side.. the later you decide to have kids, the more risks involved. For women, risks are low until ~35 or so and get much higher around 40. FTA:

> The NCHS data also showed that the share of babies born preterm last year hit its highest level in more than a decade, with just over 1-in-10 being born before 37 weeks of gestation.

Having experienced that, it's not something I'd wish on anyone.

My wife and I had a kid at 37 and now another at 40. If I could go back in time I would have started a year after marriage at 33.

> Many folks in my social circles are just less willing to accept the real responsibility of raising a child.

You can also accept the responsibility of dying childless. It might be lonely and problematic in other ways. It might even make your life shorter.

I wish people would understand that kids are not only responsibility, but also joy, and help. So the grass is not really greener on the either side.

> You can also accept the responsibility of dying childless. It might be lonely and problematic in other ways. It might even make your life shorter.

Might make your life longer and happier too. Obviously it depends on personal circumstances.

> I wish people would understand that kids are not only responsibility, but also joy, and help. So the grass is not really greener on the either side.

I think most people _do_ understand that. I would hope that you understand that depending on the circumstances, that joy and help may _not_ outweigh the responsibility and hardships.

> I would hope that you understand that depending on the circumstances, that joy and help may _not_ outweigh the responsibility and hardships.

It's not really my problem, as I am an anatalist. :-) But I do find the prospect of dying childless somewhat scary. (I have only one brother who is not going to have children either.) If it wasn't for the global warming (and general ecological destruction), I would very much want to have kids.

I’m just gonna be blunt here: opting out of having children for the sake of the environment is incredibly shortsighted. Fixing the environment is a collective action problem. Emphasis on collective: it will take many people working on it directly, advocating for it, voting for it, etc. Opting to not have children just handicaps your cause by removing future people who would likely end up on your team.

Don’t do it!

Make some babies. Raise them to be good people. The world will be a slightly better place for it. And your life will be made immeasurably better by the purpose and meaning that children bestow upon it.

This is simply false. The greatest effect you as an individual can, realistically, have on climate change is to choose not to have children. Through the magic of exponential growth it outweighs basically every other choice e.g. veganism, biking rather than driving, buying local etc.

Most western countries increase immigration (turning them into developed country level polluters) to make up for falling birthrates.

Most western countries have substantially higher emissions per capita[1] than most of the developing world. Hence, the concern about the effects of Africa/India/others standards of living increasing since it is likely to correspond with an increase in emissions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

Yes that was inside my parenthesis.

Exponential growth works in the other direction as well: if you have no children, you are freeing up resources to provide for other people’s children. And other people will continue having children (see your own argument about exponential growth).

I'm having a hard time here, what exactly are you arguing? Resources are finite and I can't control other people.

Should I increase the strain on an already overburdened system because other peoples future descendants might use those resources otherwise? I presume that I am misreading your point because that seems... ill founded.

The carrying capacity of the earth will be reached whether you have children or not. So the consideration is different: whose descendants will take up that carrying capacity. If you, as a person concerned about the environment, opt to have children, then, statistically speaking, you are biasing the future composition of the human population toward being more concerned about the environment (since your kids share you innate predispositions and will be raised in the familial and cultural milieu that you create for them). And if people who are concerned about the environment systematically choose to not have children because they have become infected by this meme, then you have a situation where the future composition of the human population is becoming more biased toward doing nothing about the environment. So not having kids is a losing strategy.

I think I already responded to all this elsewhere in this discussion. I can only accept that making children is useful to solve the problem, if I see any single example of somebody who has actually done it. Somebody, who decided to have kids with the sole purpose of raising future geniuses to solve this particular problem, and considered the trade-off (because inaction has a cost too). Where it wasn't just a convenient excuse for your own inaction in the matter. (Besides, I think imposing your desires, however good they might be, onto your children is morally wrong.)

Looking at my own example, this is false. My grandfather (who died when I was 15) was a chemical engineer, and a big fan of renewable energy. Possibly he thought the same - my generation will be the one that solves these problems. But what did I do? I work at a SW company, because it pays well. I have a rather modest lifestyle, but I can't really say I would be working on an individual solution either. So here we are - 40 years of procrastination.

I ultimately think that "they will solve the problem" is wishful thinking. There is no problem to be solved, the problem is that we (as humanity) need to stop expanding our energy needs. Whether we do it by limiting population or limiting consumption or both, doesn't really matter. But I don't think there is any problem that remains to be solved.

The problem is pure and simple, procrastination. And it won't be solved by procreation.

I’m not arguing that you’ll have kids who will directly solve the problem. Instead, I am making a statistical argument. Here’s what I said in another reply:

> The carrying capacity of the earth will be reached whether you have children or not. So the consideration is different: whose descendants will take up that carrying capacity. If you, as a person concerned about the environment, opt to have children, then, statistically speaking, you are biasing the future composition of the human population toward being more concerned about the environment (since your kids share you innate predispositions and will be raised in the familial and cultural milieu that you create for them). And if people who are concerned about the environment systematically choose to not have children because they have become infected by this meme, then you have a situation where the future composition of the human population is becoming more biased toward doing nothing about the environment. So not having kids is a losing strategy.

Please don't cross-spam the thread.

In any case, I think I already addressed it. Humans are not just mindless meme carriers, they have a mind on their own.

And if you're considering it statistically, then that argument seems even more like an excuse. If everybody expects that someone else will do a job (save the planet), but nobody actually makes a step towards that job (educating somebody to save it, or doing whatever else towards it), then the work simply doesn't get done.

Remember, at the end of the day, concerns do not matter, only actions. We already have enough humans who are concerned.

Agree that actions matter. But if there is a meme (having kids is bad for the environment) that is systematically removing people who are more likely to take action, then less action with be taken.

Everything is heritable, including political beliefs.

You've made the next generation care slightly less on average about global warming. Maybe your kids would have been more intelligent than the global average of ~90 IQ and helped work on or pay for solutions.

> You can also accept the responsibility of dying childless. It might be lonely and problematic in other ways.

Who am I to impose my degrading health/inevitable death onto someone else? I say this having dealt with both of my parent's deaths already.

I come from a long family history of mental illness, addiction, abuse, and just some general heinous stuff. Passing my daily struggle along to someone to avoid dying childless seems so selfish to me... to the point that I'd feel pretentious even considering that as a reason TO have children.

What I'm trying to say is it's just not as simple as that for many people. I've also accepted that I will likely die alone and just don't care - I've volunteered at nursing homes and EOL is miserable for everyone. Doing anything so people give a f about me down the line just seems incredibly selfish.

This is why I push for assisted suicidal wherever possible. I would not like to be a burden on anyone else in old age, and if I get to that point I would want to put myself out of my misery. Easier said than done of course.

Another way to look at this is that as dual careers have become a necessity, the economy has become so brutally competitive that it has become biologically insufficient for reproducing the working class. There's an element of choice in upper middle class careers, but for most of the population there is no choice.

Children are a result of sufficient resources being present (time, energy, supports, and money). Those things are being stripped from us by the employer class.

In terms of lack of supports, for example, the United States is one of the only advanced economies without free child care. The right wing is attempting to strip away public education. The physical process of having a child costs thousands of dollars, and sometimes they charge for letting the mother hold her baby right after it is born. Housing requires dual incomes in order to live in a place near jobs that isn't either a slum or too cramped.

There's a huge trade-off that you're missing. Fertility drops rapidly in your 30s, especially for women. I'm middle aged and know many women who waited but were unable to conceive.

It's still doable with enough effort. My best friend at 32 was able to conceive even with medical issues that would make it near impossible. It took 2 years but it happened.

It is not certain. You can evaluate odds using tools like https://www.sartcorsonline.com/predictor/patient

Keep in mind that most women will not undergo an infinite number of treatment cycles, even if they can afford it.

Your anecdote does not prove that effort is what's required. 32 is still a good age but as the numbers go up effort is not what makes this happen. It's luck and the success stories you hear are entirely the lucky few

Define "waited" https://www.babycenter.com/0_age-and-fertility-getting-pregn...

"Every study you read or expert you consult will agree that 35 is a milestone for women when it comes to having children. In your early 30s, your chances of getting pregnant are only slightly lower than in your late 20s, and your risk of having a miscarriage or a baby with Down syndrome is only slightly higher. But at 35, that decline in fertility begins to accelerate."

Sure it might take more effort than say mid-twenties, fertility tracking/treatments, etc. But it can be done. And before 35 is certainly doable.

If there's one thing I'm grateful to my parents for it's my education. Life in the 21st century requires much higher complexity to achieve similar economic/social success to previous generations, and not just on the technological front. Those with the tools to solve complex problems will do fine, those who lack said tools are going to be bitterly disappointed across most aspects of life, unless we somehow bring back unskilled labor as a middle class profession.

Couldn't one adopt and have the same experience?

Nope. Most people will never care about someone else’s child the way they’ll care about their own flesh and blood.

[citation needed]

“Daly and Wilson found stepparenthood is the strongest risk factor for child abuse ever identified..a stepparent is 40-100 times more likely to kill a young child, even when confounding factors— poverty, mother’s age, traits of people who tend to remarry—are taken into account"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/816602.Homicide

Okay? That doesn't really support toasterlovin's claim that:

>Nope. Most people will never care about someone else’s child the way they’ll care about their own flesh and blood.

Stepparenthood implies a myriad of confounding factors, not the least of which are, a) death of a parent or b) Divorce.

Upon further investigation, the link you posted does not contain the quote you posted, nor does searching the quoted text show return any results on either DuckDuckGo or Google. It is possible that this is a typographical error.

I do want to point that EvoPsych is a bit iffy as far as fields go. See [1] if you're curious. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology#Recept...

Being 40-100 times less likely to kill a child is probably correlated with caring for them more.

It was a quote from Pinker's how the mind works. The 'Daly and Wilson' referenced was what I linked to.

The overwhelming majority of people opt to have their own children rather than adopt. It is not me who bears the burden of proof.

That is an entirely different claim than the one that you made previously.

>Nope. Most people will never care about someone else’s child the way they’ll care about their own flesh and blood.

>The overwhelming majority of people opt to have their own children rather than adopt. It is not me who bears the burden of proof.

It’s not completely unrelated. It’s just not exactly the same. But I’m not sure what to tell you, since you seem to have no real understanding of basic human nature. You should talk to people about how they feel about other people’s kids. It will be illuminating for you.

Ad hominem attacks seem to be a disproportionate response to pointing out your inconsistency.

You’re doing the equivalent of asking me to provide evidence that the sky is blue. We are biological organisms who are capable of recognizing our young. There is no plausible way that we could have evolved to not prefer our own children over others. If your stance is that we don’t have such a preference, you need to provide the evidence, because you are the one taking the outlandish position.

Doesn't that mean that having children is basically selfish?

It’s selfish in the same way that not giving away most of your lifetime earnings to a stranger is selfish. You could call that selfish, but you’d be in scarce company.

This analogy is false, it's nothing like that at all. Giving or not giving up earnings is a massive change in your life. Having an adopted child or your own child is no change whatsoever other than some hormonal high for yourself; for the rest of the society/environment, adding a first world child is actually a negative.

If you want a funny analogy, a better one would be giving $1000 to charity (adoption) or giving $500 to charity, setting $250 worth of coal on fire and using $250 to buy weed so you could feel good about that all (your own kid).

I'm not sure what to say. We are biological beings and, as such, we are the result of evolution. The vast majority of us prefer our close relatives and, especially, our children by definition. There is no other state of affairs that can obtain. If you want to argue that people who fall in line with this are selfish, then fine. But that is not typically how the word is used. It is typically used to denote people who act selfishly above and beyond the baseline level of preference that we all have for our relatives, friends, and other parochial relations.

Evolution by this rather simplistic understanding also would drive (and does drive) people to usurp maximum resources for themselves and their progeny - so, to do everything from hoarding to nepotism, self-dealing and corruption - basically, the definition of selfishness.

Usually, when pretending that child-rearing is not selfish (and IMO it's more selfish than paragliding or eating cake), people refer to making sacrifices towards the child; but that is satisfied by adoption.

There is a difference between an action being selfish in an absolute sense and an action being more selfish than some alternative action. Having your own children is more selfish than adopting children. But neither is selfish.

There's no such thing as selfish in absolute sense, it would still be relative to some threshold. It's the only metric that matters in this case - you have a choice to have your own kid or adopt, you have your own kid. Your motivation for this specific choice is strictly selfish.

I'm not saying it's bad - it's your choice. But, don't preach about selflessness like most pro-natalists do; I climb rocks, and I don't preach about it even though it's less selfish (by harm done) than having kids.

Okay, starting from the beginning, because we’ve gotten sidetracked here. This is your original comment:

> Doesn't that mean that having children is basically selfish?

You were not originally making the point that having your own children was selfish compared to adopting. You were stating that it was selfish, in and of itself. Basically selfish. I still maintain that it is not, and I don’t believe you have actually argued successfully that it is. The main argument you seem to be making is that, because having your own children is more selfish than adopting, that makes it selfish in a general sense, since those are the only two options. But another option when it comes to reproducing is not having any children at all. And I can’t really see how you can argue that having your own children is more selfish than not having any children at all, since having children involves giving another person the chance to be alive at great personal cost and not having children involves no personal sacrifice and no other person getting the chance to be alive.

So the only viable position that remains is to say that having your own children is more selfish than adopting. If that’s your position, then we are in agreement.

That might have been a poor choice of words. I said across 2 posts separated by the response "Couldn't one adopt and have the same experience?" ... "Doesn't that mean that having children is basically selfish?". In context, by "is basically selfish", I meant (I guess it's not 100% clear) "given adoption is possible, on top of/instead of is ...".

But what you’re trying to argue is that something becomes selfish as long as there is any alternative action which is less selfish. Which is a ridiculous position to hold. By that reasoning, if you wanted to donate money to support your child’s school, it would be selfish because you didn’t donate it to some random school instead. Or if you spent most of your volunteer time helping elderly members of your own faith congregation, it would be selfish because you could have been helping random elderly people.

Sure, if you donate to your church so that it could put in cushier pillows on the benches or host a seminar about the bible, instead of donating to some effective cause that say saves lives, it's selfish to a significant degree.

My main point though is that pro-natalists should really stop pressing the "it's selfless"/"not having children is selfish" angle, because in the 1st world it's the opposite, and if selflessness played any part in the decision adopting would be a logical step.

In your analogy, if you donate a bunch to a church led by a pastor whose brother is your boss at work, as opposed to some other church, the donation is "less selfish" than not donating, but it makes your entire motivation credibly suspect.

> In your analogy, if you donate a bunch to a church led by a pastor whose brother is your boss at work,

No. This is not my analogy. This is further stipulation that you've added to my analogy that changes the moral calculus completely. My analogy is just volunteering your time to help old people at your church. By your reasoning, this would be considered selfish because you are choosing to patronize members of your own church with your good works, rather than random people.

> My main point though is that pro-natalists should really stop pressing the "it's selfless"/"not having children is selfish"

FWIW, there are plenty of people making the argument that having children is selfish (our exchange here being a good example of such). What do you expect people to do when you call the single most important endeavor of their life, which entails massive amounts of personal sacrifice, basically selfish? And, truly, to call having children selfish shows that you have essentially no conception of what parenting entails.

If you want to argue that it's irresponsible because children have an environmental impact, then I still think you're wrong, but you're not preposterously wrong. Just subtly wrong (IMO).

You can freeze your gametes. Probably a good idea to do now, male and female.

It's a real responsibility. The losses are real. I think the key thing is realizing that you don't find real fulfillment in doing what you want. You don't find it in financial success, or in travel.

And so you can wind up chasing more money or more travel or more time to do your thing, and never finding that it's enough to satisfy you, because what you're looking for isn't there. This trip won't be enough, and the next one won't either, because what you're hungry for isn't in a trip.

Children can help you learn that. If you have children and don't learn it, then you resent the children. "I didn't find what I was looking for, but I could have, if they didn't mess it up for me!"

But I'm not sure that I can explain this in a way that makes sense to someone who doesn't already kind of feel it...

Nah - I appreciated the comment and really agree with it. Life isn't just black and white, and simplifying it to that is reductionist to the weird minutia that makes up the brilliance of this whole experience.

Things just have been admittedly rocky for me through my life, and I'll fully own that too - it's what you do with your situation that matters. In some ways I'm stunted in comparison to lots of the folks here and have had to live my teens in my 20's, and a bit of my 20's into my 30's. I get that I'm a grown-ass-adult and all, but I'm still growing up, hence the "I'm not into this whole kids thing."

But it is by definition selfish.

You literally have thousands of generations that have gone before you, that have sacrificed to give you those very choices you’ve outlined.

Your parents comforted you when you were scared, even to the detriment of their sleep. Fed you, clothed you, shared all of their resources even when they didn’t feel like it, even when it wasn’t to their advantage.

Edit: not sure why this is downvoted?

“Selfish: lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.”

Presumably the “others” referenced in the definition need to actually exist for you to lack consideration for them.

Agree. And in this situation I would define any potential child as part of the "others" as in "it's selfish for me to have a kid if I'm not prepared financially/emotionally."

False. People take into consideration future people/events all of the time. It’s called planning.

You know what future events I'm taking into consideration? Devastating climate change and what seems to be the decline of society more generally. I have real concerns about choosing to bring a child into a world that I feel so pessimistic about. That strikes me as thoughtful, not selfish. Though I have many selfish reasons for wanting to not have children, just as everyone who wants children has just as many selfish reasons themselves. I view neither of those things as "bad".

Moreover, if I'm going to start considering the impact I have on future generations and people by procreating, where does it stop? Should we have 10 children? Does my duty stop at two when we're replacing ourselves?

And given my level of commitment to local and national causes (financial and volunteer hours), does that offset ostensible selfishness of not having children? I'm passionate about helping this world despite having concerns about bringing anyone new into it.

Not even close.

Donating money and volunteer hours are not the same as 24 hour care and responsibility for years on end.

They aren’t offsetting. You’re skipping the very hard work of it all, and justly, missing the reward too.

I congratulate you for convincing yourself that your desire to do the thing you really want to do - have children - is any less selfish than the decisions I've also chosen. I sincerely believe you've missed the point, and I wish you ill-luck on your moral crusade.

What about someone who has no kids, but instead cares for and commits their entire existence to helping humanity? Still selfish? What about the couple who has 10 kids and relies on charity and public assistance to survive? Not selfish?

It's important to keep in mind that all those generations before us did it because that's just what you did - by not reproducing you're not stopping the Kwisatz Haderach from being born or anything. There's no manifest destiny here - it's just that sex feels good. That's it.

Your comments are not being downvoted because they are false - there is some truth in what you say.

They're being downvoted because:

(1) your comment is a blanket assumption on an entire group of people, and

(2) you claim a position of (likely unearned) moral superiority that (you assume) allows you to make such judgements on others.

Thus, you come off as "un-cool." Be cool, my friend. Don't judge strangers for the important life choices they make. You don't know enough about others' lives to make justifiable judgements on the important life choices they make.

>thousands of generations that have gone before you

(a) This is true. You would not be here if prior generations didn't sacrifice to have children.

>Fed you, clothed you, shared all of their resources even when they didn’t feel like it, even when it wasn’t to their advantage

(b) This is true. You would not exist if someone did not take care of you.

(c) The OP stated in this public forum, "We're just taking our time trying to do the right thing for us really... I just wish people would stop calling us selfish for that"

Which meets the definition of "selfish".

Since when is the concern for a child (born or not) with strong aspirations for financial/emotional self-care and responsibility "selfish"?

I am not comfortable having a child, therefore I am not having a child. I am not going to impose an unwanted child on this world as I know what it feels like to be one...

Agreed, no point in making babies if you know the standard of living for your family will be worse.

Is that selfish? Don't know, don't care. I don't need to justify my choices to internet strangers.

Not sure why you care to participate in this public discussion then.

> Your parents comforted you when you were scared, even to the detriment of their sleep. Fed you, clothed you, shared all of their resources even when they didn’t feel like it, even when it wasn’t to their advantage.

Oof, I’m glad you haven’t met some of the parents I’ve met.

IDIOCRACY Opening Scene (2006) Mike Judge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2tUW0HDHA

That is one of my favorite documentaries.

This scene is directly responsible for convincing me to reproduce. I saw this movie, and less than a week later met some old dumb guy that said he had over 90 grandchildren. I was convinced I needed to do my part to shift the balance of the future toward intelligence.

I now have 3 children, and would love to have many many more.

Don't you think that's a little arrogant?

You're not selfish. Do what's right you.

You could make the argument those having kids are selfish. I'm not going to enumerate all the reasons why but it doesn't take much thought to come up with many.

I'm not saying they are selfish, only that people can make the argument either way. Ignore them.

> Also, with religious stresses being almost non-existent in the groups I run in I feel like people aren't jumping into legally-binding marriages

I’ve made the same observation, I think “common law” marriage is becoming a big thing. I also notice it’s not a mutually-appreciated situation for many couples long term, usually with one partner wanting to enter into a legal marriage but not the other for various reasons.

I'm genuinely curious, who in your life is calling you selfish? Are they specific people, or are you asserting that "society" is making this claim?

Both - even in this thread someone is getting downvoted into oblivion for calling me selfish:

> It's terrifying to me that selfishness and self-centeredness has apparently taken over that generation of young people.

It's a very common sentiment and it's usually older family/coworkers.

EDIT: now there's even more and weird "you're gonna die alone" comments in there too (which are common as a counter argument for waiting)... just look at this thread and you'll see exactly what I was trying to describe.

A couple separate issues but first and foremost I'm sorry you are being treated this way.

1. HNers (myself included) are argumentative and treat HN like a debate platform. I wouldn't assign any weight to comments here about issues such as this (or anything for that matter)

2. The people in your real world sound pretty terrible. I can't think of one person who would DARE tell me I'm being selfish for choosing to have kids or not. Maybe it's because I'm a man, or self-confident, or something else but I couldn't even imagine someone saying this to me without it turning into a very unpleasant argument, not to mention me cutting off contact.

Did I just luck out with family, peers and coworkers? Maybe.

How do you respond?

I've cut off contact with a huge chunk of my family and my GF's family is way more understanding as they've been living in California for the last 20 years and get that people just have different ways of living for different reasons. They've made marriage comments but they just want us to get hitched since we've been together for so long which I see as way more benign than pushing us for kids.

I find it's predominantly a conservative view that comes from religious underpinnings. I also think it comes down to a lot of folks who took the traditional path because "that's what you're suppose to do" who are threatened by alternative life circumstances.

I respond with, "we're taking our time to figure things out financially and emotionally to be healthy people" - or something along those lines. It's a 100% genuine answer and usually knocks them off their stance enough that they consider how things may be for someone different than them.

I could get into more details but a big reason I deal with this is because I'm the very socially liberal black-sheep that moved to California in my conservative Iowan family. It's just a way for them to dig at me passive-aggressively without outright challenging my views. I've also experienced this in workplaces/offices with uncomfortably strong Christian vibes.

I have no knowledge of your specific situation but one thing to remember if in your case its your parents pushing you to have kids is that they may be doing it out of both the desire to have grand kids and see the continuation of their line as well as them knowing that they love you and want you to experience that same love. With that said, don't let anyone pressure you into making what is probably the largest single decision in anyone's life.

It is interesting to me that people who definitely want to have children think somehow they are being less selfish than those of us who don't. We're both doing what we want to do to bring and sustain joy in our lives.

Are these individuals the people that actually didn't want to have children but did so out of selfless commitment to their spouses or desire of their parents to become grandparents? I don't typically get that sense.

Relatedly: I feel very, very pessimistic about how our society is changing, and even worse about the environment. This is a large part of my reluctance to have children. Is that selfish too?

They are/were either in happy marriages with children and think everyone should experience that in the same way Timothy Leary thought everyone should drop acid and are both wrong, or they are/were in unhappy marriages or had horrible children and feel everyone should experience that in the same way fraternities think everyone should be hazed and are both wrong. Either way, they assume that you can either find the right spouse or give up your entire life just to have some kids that may or may not care about you on your deathbed. Nowhere in this discussion is the desire of the people who haven't yet had children considered. All arguments are in a bad faith authoritarian controlling nature: "I know better than you" type. Pretty much every argument on here that advocates for children falls into those two camps. Some people even write "when you have kids," assuming it's inevitable because they are simply too closed minded and blind to the fact that not everyone wants kids.

Finally, whatever reason you have for wanting or not wanting kids is always going to be selfish first. It might also contain altruistic elements. There's nothing wrong with being selfish and doing what is best for you. Or are we all supposed to be altruistic and donate our entire salary every month to charity? Absurd.

I believe people who do not want to have children and yet plan to depend on the social safety or their own savings are either being selfish or being ignorant about how these programs work. It is not sufficient to just pay your taxes, because they go to fund the current beneficiaries. When it is your turn to use these programs, you will need a new set of people to pay taxes to fund your retirement / maintain stock market valuation of your portfolio by working in those companies / produce food or entertainment or service which you are going to consume. These people need to be born and raised, either in your society or in other societies. And no, robots are not coming anytime soon to take care of your finances and consumption in your retirement.

I will acknowledge that this is the best community-minded argument for having children that I've seen, but it also has the distinction of being the least convincing on influencing personal decisions. You may as well be selling me on a Ponzi scheme. Your argument presents raising children as if you're farming a resource to ensure our half-asses social safety net doesn't collapse.

This point is not lost on me, but it does lose some power when I'm working for actual systemic change that doesn't create such a stratified, ponzi-scheme style social structure. I'm not going to be a human resources bot to keep the SS fund liquid (which is a far larger problem than just me), but I'm also not just sitting around watching the world crumble without taking action.

I'm sure we can yadda yadda yadda our way into the inevitable debate about the parallels, perils and pitfalls of a society built on unending economic growth, but let's not. A broken system creates an obligation to fix the system, not keep it on life support with my sex organs.

Thanks for your insight that this is not going to change anyone's minds. And frankly, "being selfish" has lost a lot of its stigma, so planning to enjoy one's retirement while relying on the labor of the future generations raised by someone else can be a totally acceptable plan in many parts of our society.

Question to you - if you think current system is broken, what would you replace it with if you had all the power?

> Anecdotal: Many folks in my social circles are just less willing to accept the real responsibility of raising a child. We're all late-20-somethings/early 30-somethings and I have the conversation all the time with people who want to wait until things like careers are established, until they have a chance to seriously travel a bit, and most commonly they just want to enjoy a relationship without the stress of kids. Kids are an insanely huge responsibility, and to parent right all of your life priorities change completely.

I don't meet these people often (I'll be 30/dead in a few months). Most of the people I meet are just not interested in kids - or they already have them. The bank of mom & dad helps with that down payment so they can start pumping out children. I've had friends who gave up on children - they were satisfied being the cool aunt and uncle. I imagine the financial pressure has some influence like it does for me.

Personally - I'm at such a financial burden that I don't know when it'll happen. I quite literally cannot imagine having kids or being excited about them because I find it so hard to even get further in my career with financial prospects. Children is a complete non-starter if I don't have the income to support them. And I don't want them to ever live anything close to what I grew up with - the generational poverty line stops with me. It's not like I have a partner who could have kids right now anyway. (My significant other is about to be gone for ~2 years to finish her degree)

I can't imagine having kids when I hate my jobs so much (agonizing) and feel like I get paid peanuts (half or less than what my peers make at bigger places). So - I'll wait. No sense in having kids when I'm miserable AF because I can't get what I want or need to support them. Maybe they'll never happen. Maybe my significant other will find a new partner who has rich parents. Maybe I'll be single forever more. Whatever.

"Don't wait for the perfect moment, take the moment and make it perfect"

While there is definitely bad timing when it comes to kids, there is never a perfect time. I waited because I didn't really care but now I wish I hadn't. Every year you wait is one less year you get to know them. They are selfish little jerks that could change the way you think and give you a renewed purpose. As long as you can provide food, shelter, love and imagination you don't need anything else and neither will they.

Maybe now really is a bad time for you though as it's hard to know without stepping in your shoes. But if you really want them, I genuinely hope you find that just-perfect-enough moment.

There will always be people out there saying there is no perfect time to have children. And, thus, their conclusion is that because there's no perfect time then there is no time that makes one time better than another.

I can tell you quite confidently that having children now would ruin us financially and emotionally. In 2 years after my partner graduates college, in all likelihood, it'd do the same. My wife would never be able to get a job because she'd be a college grad that went right into childbearing without ever having a professional job. Some five to seven years later when she is forced to go back into the workforce - she'd never be able to get anything that would substantially contribute to our income.

So - really - when is a good time for me? I don't know - I don't think it ever existed for me. I'm left with not good and terrible times. All I've learned from my friends who did have kids was to have kids earlier than 37. So far, it's lookin' like 37 is what will be the age for me because I won't have my career, my wife's career, or my financial situation worked out until then. Fortunately, for one of us, my significant other (if we're still together) will only be 30.

Such is life. Full of ruined plans because I tried to break into the upper class while being born into a much much lower one.

On a global level, a wealthy person delaying or not having kids is an altruistic gift, avoiding pollution.

On a family level, not having kids (ever) is both selfish (if you neither pay back your parents for their effort not pay it forward it to kids of your own) and also vandalism to your parents: genetic heritage.

My parents did plenty to abuse and there's strong history of mental illness, addiction, and genetic disorders on both sides of my family.

Is this vandalism? I think not...

I didn't ask to be born, it was forced on me. I don't see why I would have any moral obligation to not vandalize my genetic heritage nor why I would owe anyone taking the responsibility of another life.

Re: your deleted comment

19 years ago I built a several TB data warehouse that searched and returned data in a matter of seconds. 10 years ago I built a system that linked several TB of data together and returned data in a matter of milliseconds. Today I work for a company that sifts through hundreds of TB of data, PB of indexes, and GB of associated data that returns in a matter of milliseconds.

What I’m saying is if that data warehouse is not a core business operation there is no reason to throw any more resources at it than is necessary. Dystopian nightmares can be enabled by simply adding new indexes or adding more compute nodes.

Thanks for your reply. I saw most of the replies in that thread were 8-9hrs old so I thought it wasn't the right place to ask. I really appreciate your reply and it sounds like my worries aren't unfounded.

I'm a high-functioning autistic and have Alzheimer's disease in my family.

I wouldn't wish either of these on anyone - the future will just have to get along without any of my offspring.

I am diabetic and would hate to force this on my offspring. So selfish of me!

Other people sacrificed a lot so you could enjoy this thing called life. I think that saddles you with a burden of paying the debt forward to your children. After all, you’re the only person who can bestow the gift of life on them.

I think many people agree with you, maybe even just on a subconscious level. But I’m not sure that it’s a good argument. Doesn’t that logic imply that you have a duty to bestow life on as many children as possible? It’s not just your first and second child that are owed the gift of life that only you can bestow. It’s also the 14th and 15th and so on, right?

If you sacrifice your entire life to have children, that would be very admirable, but then you wouldn’t have any life left to enjoy yourself. At that point, you’re no longer merely paying things forward. So no, I don’t think my logic implies that you have to have as many children as possible.

In my opinion, the magic number is 2. When you have two children, you are keeping the number of humans alive constant (since it takes two people to have a child, you only get “credit” for half of each child). Everything beyond that is purely up to you to balance the sacred work of creating human lives vs. enjoying your own pursuits.

I think part of the error in this train of thought is thinking having kids is a huge responsibility. Naturally speaking, its the most straightforward thing. We've made it into a huge responsibility.

I probably wouldn’t call it an error and say “having kids needs to be” rather than “having kids is”.

It’s reasonable to speak inside the inside the big walls society puts up without specifying so.

Unless you’re willing to go to the extreme of somehow going off the grid and home schooling (and god forbid you have health care issues, for example), it’s just the way it is.

I am making this comment here as a late father of two in good faith.

Please consider at least 1/3 of what I am trying to say.

"Many folks in my social circles are just less willing to accept the real responsibility of raising a child. We're all late-20-somethings/early 30-somethings and I have the conversation all the time with people who want to wait until things like careers are established,"

This is the eternal search for the "perfect time", "perfect conditions" as I sometimes said myself:

"When I have more time, I will go to the Gym."

"When I get more money I will be able to save."

"All-in-all I've noticed a big generational gap in thinking on this one because all I hear from tons of older relatives is "sooo when you guys getting married?" ...or even pushing for children before the fact. It feels unnatural and downright weird to field those questions and it's neigh impossible to explain we're just taking our time to enjoy this thing and not rushing into huge commitments with marriage or kids..."

No, there is not. I am in my forties and got the same questions. But you know what the real deal is? People are not asking about the children. They are polite, trying to alert you.

Alert about:

1. Healthy babies and age of parents -> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3881604/

2. What age will you be when your son wants to play/run at his 16 years?

3. We don't have control of life anytime. You may be Healthy now, but it only takes a disease to change it.

4. One thing is you did not use protection on your 20's and got pregnant another is willing to get pregnant later -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_and_female_fertility

Life is a match competition game if you are aware or not.

Older ladies compete against younger ladies (more fertile)

Man compete with another man for physical security (muscles and tall) or financial security(money, resources).

The main problem is sometimes you are having fun with someone that you can't see yourself having a family.

Now about the other reasons to not have a baby:

1. The "earth", carbon resources, global warming -> Riiight it seems the propaganda only targets one part of the population that is not the part of the problem.

2. We just need more robots: That will be nice for you to live in a robotic nursery home. "Alexa! Give me my pills".

3. Immigration will complement: different people, different traditions, different morals. Don't get surprised later!

Now consider at least 1/3 of what I said in good faith:

1. Are you spending your time with someone you can see raising a family? If not is like sleeping with a poisonous snake in your bedroom. One day it will bite you.

2. Did your past jobs/companies called you on holidays? Invited you for a BBQ?

3. Who profits from high IQ, working hard people not having kids? Have you checked how much a burrito breakfast is charged in a retirement home? How much is "dinner"? (microwave)

Please consider it in good faith. What if 1/3 is true?

You're basically just arguing from fear - missed opportunities, conflict, and difficulties if you wait.

No.

There are facts that are real. Fertility, health, and age of parents.

You can scream, get angry. But still are facts.

The ideas you had once in the '20s may not be the ideas you will get on 30's and '40s.

And that is ok.

But as I said.

What If 1/3 of what I said is true?

I am not saying every body has to have kids.

But I find myself having more females friends that "lost the train" and are bitter.

It is no fun when you know someone that has all the skills and qualities to be an excellent mother realize she can't anymore.

I don't feel happy to be "right" about it.

My sadness is what makes me expose this even with a cost so someone else may benefit.

Why would I gamble on 1/3 odds? Does that make you 2/3rds likely to be wrong?

There's a whole movement now of people coming out and saying that they don't like having kids - as a society we made that impossible to say without severe chastisement. We have no idea if the women in your life who regret it now would be happy with children. It's all a gamble, and tell people that their time is running out isn't particularly helpful, and running entirely on guilt.

All right, though your manner of writing is extremely hard to parse, lets look at the arguments:

1. Healthy babies and age of parents -> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3881604/

Are non-optimal babies undesirable?

2. What age will you be when your son wants to play/run at his 16 years?

At my current age I'll be in my 50's. I'm fitter in my 30's than I ever was in my 20's. Does 40's vs 50's make that much of a difference?

3. We don't have control of life anytime. You may be Healthy now, but it only takes a disease to change it.

This isn't compelling if I get sick I won't want to have kids. Rushing to have kids only to die is actually incredibly selfish.

4. One thing is you did not use protection on your 20's and got pregnant another is willing to get pregnant later -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_and_female_fertility

I don't know what you're saying here. Try more? For something I don't want?

Later on:

1. Are you spending your time with someone you can see raising a family? If not is like sleeping with a poisonous snake in your bedroom. One day it will bite you.

Yes, but neither she nor I want one.

2. Did your past jobs/companies called you on holidays? Invited you for a BBQ?

The company has a BBQ, yes. So... I guess that's covered?

3. Who profits from high IQ, working hard people not having kids? Have you checked how much a burrito breakfast is charged in a retirement home? How much is "dinner"? (microwave)

Is it my duty to take care of my parents? That's another selfish argument. Also, it's a bit conceited to assume high IQ.

"There's a whole movement now of people coming out and saying that they don't like having kids - as a society, we made that impossible to say without severe chastisement. We have no idea if the women in your life who regret it now would be happy with children. It's all a gamble, and tell people that their time is running out isn't particularly helpful, and running entirely on guilt."

Their time is running out. In a natural average progression, people have a peak in healthiness, and then decline starts as age progress. Whatever you hold as "fair" does not matter. Mother Nature has a different plan. We can buy sometimes not all time.

"Are non-optimal babies undesirable?" We as a society have whole care with conception, prenatal care, prenatal screening, and checks. That shows how we care about it. That is a signal that yes society as a whole wants healthy babies.

... .... ...

The path of having babies is NOT for all. Society had a place without children for positions as mentors, charity, and educators.

If you are OK and it seems you are happy with your option that is great. You remember me of my "wise uncle" that has a lot of stories and wisdom to teach us. And his role was to mentor and give a different perspective. When we got angry with parents or don't know what to do and need advice without the parent's bias he was our mentor.

But my point is:

1. Time is a factor; 2. No, you don't have all the time;

The message my friends and me got and BELIEVED was:

"you can do it all!"

"After your Ph.D. you can marry"

"Once you get your assistant professor position you can start".

"Better finish your Ph.D., buy a house and then get a raise to have kids".

"After you finish with your startup then we have kids".

Now imagine what happened:

Dotcom bust, 9/11, financial crisis, mortgage crisis, wars...

One thing is to have it clear and decide not to have a kid like you. clear as crystal.

Another is like me and believe in the lies.

I am not saying that you were wrong.

I am saying: I was wrong

Please consider I may have some valid points whoever is reading this.

people should have kids, I think the "no kids" thing is really just a modern American concept. It's fine to wait and plan but I feel sorry for people who say they don't want kids because of what they are reading in global news or whatever. humans have raised children through far worse conditions than now!

Stressful only if you make it. Tiring for everyone, but that's different. Even if you go broke and end up living in a trailer in the sticks it's still ok to have had kids and they will be ok.

For two months, lockdown protesters have been called selfish for the perception that they stand in opposition to what their detractors believe is a more important obligation to wider society over their personal concerns.

By the same token, having children is essential to maintain the social welfare state, and those that choose to travel or maintain a career instead are currently benefiting from that state while not contributing future workers back to it.

I don't know what the solution is, but short of dismantling the welfare state, there needs to be a concern on the part of today's young people for the perpetuation of the system from which they benefited so greatly.

> having children is essential to maintain the social welfare state

That's not actually true though - immigration happily supports the required population growth. When the whole world stops reproducing we may need a plan B, but that's not a problem right now.

Immigration also requires someone having children, just in a different country. And the birth rate is already declining across the world [1]. So it is still kind of selfish, at a country level, to not have kids of your own but let the other countries go through the trouble of having and raising kids only to lure them once they are ready to contribute to the society.

[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN

To a large extent immigration (along with internal migration) and the pressure it puts on real estate costs have been responsible for the drop in birth rates. I know plenty of people that would have had kids if they'd had the financial stability and didn't require both parent working full time. But the current generation id far poorer than their parents where it counts.

> When the whole world stops reproducing we may need a plan B, but that's not a problem right now.

Regardless of reproduction rates this will happen sooner than you think. As India and China become more developed emigrating becomes less and less desirable as the gap between risk and reward shrinks. After that there is no pool of immigrants with a similar size, sub-saharan Africa will likely become one but the educational standard of that population will likely rise in a much more staggered fashion, it will never match the numbers we saw from India and China.

> there needs to be a concern on the part of today's young people for the perpetuation of the system from which they benefited so greatly

It also seems like the system that will throw me overboard and tell me to "pull myself up by the bootstraps" the moment I hit turbulent times.

Given current events, the argument could be made that it'll also throw you overboard the minute it hits turbulent times as well. Rough seas ahead, somebody is going in the water.

Right now I feel for the folks that physically have to be on the front-line of all of this to the point I'll say we did throw a lot of them overboard.

I'm afraid someone will go off on me for saying this, in regards to unemployment - I do not believe many of these jobs are ever coming back... and I think we've got a recession on our hands that's about to make 2008 look like a stroll through the tulips. We're just in the quiet before the storm =(

I don't think enough people here get how lucky most HNers are to be on the right side of the class divide, especially now.

Given that this recession was largely artificial - in the sense it's not the market pausing itself, I have no idea if this will prove to be a bad one or not - I don't think we've ever seen anything like this before. But I do share the same fear you have, that the jobs aren't coming back. I think for a lot of companies the skeleton crew will become the normal crew, and as always more will be done with less to the detriment of everyone who isn't still employed.

> It also seems like the system that will throw me overboard ... the moment I hit turbulent times.

Which is why having a set of people who are close to you is so priceless. Ultimately, your family and your best friends are more likely to be there for you than any government run program.

That's what robots are for.

It's terrifying to me that selfishness and self-centeredness has apparently taken over that generation of young people. Our society and culture are doomed if this doesn't change.

It is easily arguable that given the overpopulation of the planet and looming risks of climate change that the people delaying or choosing against having kids are saving the future for humanity.

> It's terrifying to me that selfishness and self-centeredness has apparently taken over that generation of young people.

It's selfish and self-centered to not* have children?

> Our society and culture are doomed if this doesn't change.

That's one opinion I guess. Personally I believe our society and culture are doomed if we don't significantly decrease the human population. But that's just another opinion.

*Edit: I forgot the "not" which obviously entirely changes the meaning of my post.

Choosing not to have kids doesn't mean you're selfish or self-centered. In fact, it's often the complete opposite. Choosing to have kids when you're not in a situation to raise them decently (mentally, physically, emotionally, financially) is the more selfish choice.

That's one way to look at it. The more realistic is, I think, to recognize that the generation reaching child-bearing age has lived through one major recession, seemingly another is on the way and our response to the first was to increase the indebtedness of everyone broadly. Even past that, with Millenials and lower you're looking at people that take the possibility of catastrophic climate change seriously and have serious anxiety about it. Is it responsible to bring a child into the world if you're broke and if you're dreading the future?

OP seems like they run in some affluent circles, but the problem is broader than just among the affluent.

> OP seems like they run in some affluent circles

I have a weird situation with one foot in affluent California, and one foot in blue collar Iowa (Cedar Rapids). It's all over in my experience.

Also, I have definitely thought about all of those things you've listed in regards to life planning, and would say that they definitely influence me strongly on this.

> I have a weird situation with one foot in affluent California, and one foot in blue collar Iowa (Cedar Rapids). It's all over in my experience.

I wonder how weird that is. My situation is broadly similar, excepting that I'm from Missouri. For what it's worth, I wasn't aiming to call you out as being well-off and out of touch. I was responding more to the bits I thought the intermediate poster was perceiving as selfish and what not.

> Also, I have definitely thought about all of those things you've listed in regards to life planning, and would say that they definitely influence me strongly on this.

Boy, you and me both.

In my extended family and high school network, nearly everyone in my age group who had a kid in their early 20s has been on welfare or other assistance at some point. The financial stress ruined a lot of those marriages. And it doesn’t scale, since someone’s taxes paid for all that support.

Waiting a few extra years for financial security is not selfish. Having children without building up some assets to ride through a financial crisis or bout of unemployment is selfish.

Isn't the act of having children just as selfish--or more selfish? I don't know of any parents (I have four children) who had kids to advance the human race. Most of the reasons for having kids--that I have heard--are related to the personal satisfaction of raising children, having a family, and not being alone when old. Not having kids is less selfish than having kids, as the non-parent is not adding any additional stress to society or the environment.

Absolutely - and I'll make the argument that by rushing into something that I'm not ready for financially/emotionally that I would be doing the kid and world a huge disservice.

Well its a reflection of the world previous generations have built to us - you have to study very hard, work hard, in US take massive loans even before entering workforce, no way a single parent can feed whole family like it used to before and so on...

People want more enjoyment out of life, and in the same time finding their place in life got harder. Have state support parentship more (ie sponsored kindergardens instead of horribly expensive ones), because modern folks often live too far from their parents. And tons of other supportive things.

Ie in Switzerland where I live, you are taxed more if you as a couple get married. Staying single brings more than 1000$ extra per month. Even with 1 kid, we are still worse off compared to not marrying. I mean, how more clear can the state be to giving you a massive fuck you as a parent? People here have kids despite state child support policies, not thanks to them.

If you don't feel that you have some support, kids are simply too hard for many. Although, subjectively, they are the best thing in my life.

On the contrary; I think it's rather selfless to pay for infrastructure and programs that help raise kids, when you have none yourself.

The real narcissism to me, is bringing a child into this world when you're not 100% certain in your abilities to properly raise it. It is a lifetime commitment you need to know you're ready to make before you do so.

Try not to discount the external pressure the current generation faces.

Real wage declines, often dual incomes required just to keep up, two major recessions during prime career building years, primary equity channels increasingly unaffordable, cultural mal-adaptation in many semi-rural/small metro areas to support children in dual-income situations, poor financial literacy as a part of core education, punitive judicial system engendering classism, and more. Not all these problems are new. However, they have increased and are the daily reality this generation faces.

Want to see more people have children? Encourage, vote for, and adopt policies that reduce the external costs of child rearing and birthing. Only then, if low birth rate remains extant, can doomsaying and despair over cultural selfishness be acceptable. Until then, focus on bug-fixing the social platform.

Said every older generation about every younger generation, ever. Yet here we are.

It's thinly veiled hedonism, we'll reach some kind of equilibrium eventually but it's going to be painful.

Being terrified that if I have a child I'm going to subject myself and it to financial ruin? I still feel like I'm barely surviving. Because I graduated when the 08 recession happened it necessitated a life course correction, and took me until my 30's until I got my career started. Having lived my twenties paycheck to paycheck, I'm just starting to realize I have money in the bank and the next thousand dollar expense isn't going to empty me out. I can't imagine retiring, nor ever really feeling good about where I am in life. When does the hedonism start?

Could someone explain this viewpoint to me? It's a common one but I just don't understand where it's coming from. What am I depriving anyone by not having children? I could make the argument that having children is selfish but I don't really understand the opposite perspective well.

This is the viewpoint you adopt when you believe in natalist politics but blame individuals rather than the material conditions they must cope with.

Natalism comes from a few different sources. Some of them are religious in nature ("God commands us to be fruitful and multiply."). Sometimes it comes from an econometric analysis ("We need more workers to be economically competitive."). Sometimes it comes from a humanistic desire to see people happy with kids. Usually though, it's not that last reason that people start talking about "selfishness". The most relatable and forgiving reason someone might act like this is that they want grandkids and are salty about it.

Who is OP being selfish towards? The children they don't have? If that's the case then is its selfish to stop having kids is it not? Have 2 kids, its selfish not to have 7. Who decides the correct amount of children to have and who decides if that number is greater than 0?

There are a variety of factors that are or should be taken into account before having a child, OP is being responsible. If they don't want or feel like they are not ready for a child, not having a child is the responsible option.

This 'generation of young people' are incredibly financially insecure and are currently experiencing the second great recession of their lives. Adding the expense of children to that is not a responsible action. Good for OP for making a rational decision that suits their needs.

Depends on the reasons. I cannot have children because of a genetic disorder that my father decided to spread around irresponsibly, having lots of kids with multiple women. That disorder took the life of my brother recently, and I was explicitly advised to NOT have children because it apparently becomes worse every generation, something proven by the children of my stepbrothers and sisters.

Try to explain that to people, and you might as well be telling them that the weather is bad, though. It's kinda nonsensical.

There are young people all over the world who would go to the US right now, if they could get a visa, because they will have better opportunities there, and because they genuinely love the US culture.

The only culture that is liable to die from lack of children is a culture that could not survive in the free.

Having kids in the first world is probably the most selfish act one can do. All other obvious arguments aside (w.r.t. impact on society, the planet, etc. compared to the alternatives), if your motivation was not basically selfish you'd adopt.

It's literally the same thing, except you don't get to propagate your genes and might get less of a personal hormone rush.

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