Not that my choice is suitable for everybody, but the most common choice is not suitable for everybody either.
For better or worse people with kids know both lives, people without kids only know one. It's like saying "you'll never know how it is to eat an entire cake". Maybe you ate much of it, that counts for something. Now you're on to the next cake. You might bite more than you can chew but this goes for everything.
The value of this freedom is the highest when you're young, experimenting, putting your life on some track. Being "free" at 65 doesn't have anywhere near the same value as it does at 20. Once you do it (almost) all, everything else becomes more of the same doesn't it? That cake I was mentioning? The first bite tasted a whole lot better than the last.
There's no right or wrong, everyone knows their preference and personal circumstances. But your explanation felt like a knee-jerk reaction.
It's nice they make you happy, but will their lives be happy?
The evidence says it's very unlikely.
My choice is not to inflict that experience on another sentient being. I'm really not seeing anything at the moment that encourages me to question that.
Compared to what? We're living in some of the best times humanity as a whole ever had. Deciding en-masse to not have kids is the irresponsible thing because it literally condemns humanity to extinction and creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. You're cursing the world because you stubbed your toe. Social media inflicted this kind of feeling a lot over the last couple of decades.
> but will their lives be happy?
You'd have to ask them. Humans overwhelmingly choose to live so you could conclude that they prefer existing over the alternative. Happiness is very relative and you'd have a hard time defining it even for yourself, let alone for your hypothetical unborn child.
> The evidence says it's very unlikely.
There's absolutely no evidence to support anything you said. It's your personal preference and you're entitled to it. Why don't you own your choice instead of putting it on fictitious evidence that your unborn child will be unhappy?
> My choice is not to inflict that experience on another sentient being
Whatever you pick you're making that choice for you, not for them.
Children don't know the world exists beyond their town until they're instructed on it!
My direct ancestors lived through some harrowing times without losing their will to live and if they were alive today they would likely feel this is a great time to be alive. My 2c.
Sometimes to more abject despair, but often to more hope.
People shouldn't be forced at gunpoint to have children, but they also shouldn't be dragged down into insecurity and despair that it's financially impossible.
People and cultures that don't want children will give way to those who do.
And I mean proper life, backpacking for months around south east asia, himalaya, diving in remote tropical islands, doing extreme mountain sports to the fullest capacity. You know, stuff that adds easily many decades of life actually experienced.
It doesnt compare, it cant.
But there is a catch - to have a chance for actually being a good long term stable parent (and also having and raising kids in a similar way), 2 balanced individuals need to meet and be close to each other on many levels, and then keep working on it. Something I dont see often around me unfortunately in these me-me-me times, with corresponding consequences. Better having no kids than be a miserable parent, raising another miserable generation of permanent cripples.
Just wait till you hit 60s and the pool of nice things you can do keeps shrinking dramatically, I've heard such phrases before and then heard regrets some time later.
It really is a change that's not quite possible to convey with words.