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.
"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.
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).
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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).
>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...
It was a quote from Pinker's how the mind works. The 'Daly and Wilson' referenced was what I linked to.
>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.
Keep in mind that most women will not undergo an infinite number of treatment cycles, even if they can afford it.