It seems like child abuse to bring someone into this shithole of a world.
That’s why I don’t want to do it. Anyone born now or later are going to experience a slow painful death due to lack or resources or a quick painful death in a resource war. And if they have any smarts they would hate my guts once they figure out the fate I had knowingly consigned them to by forcing their concious into a meatsuit.
If being birthed required consent from the eventual person, no births would go to term.
Well, did I miss something here? I would have consented… Hell, I’d do it all over again from the beginning even. Let me get to 90, healthily, and then do it all backwards like Merlin.
Edit: though, hilariously, I don’t have kids, mostly because I don’t have the money to raise one with ease. I’m also just not sure I’m interested.
Yeah once was enough for me, I don’t think I want another go at this shit, just delete me from existence
yup either getting propagandized beign sent as fodder for a war, or be miserable from the lack of career, education, job,etc.
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We also know more about genetically linked diseases than ever.
I watched my grandmother on my mother’s side die of ovarian cancer, which also killed my great grandmother, and afflicted one if my cousins. I would be practically condemning a daughter to the same fate because it’s highly genetically linked.
Similarly I watched Parkinson’s, another highly genetically linked disease, take my grandfather on my mother’s side.
My father’s side of the family has a genetic history of heart disease and high blood pressure and my father lost his own father to heart failure when his father was in his forties.
Knowing your own families medical and genetic history also puts a damper on the whole enterprise.
^ this. There is so much chronic pain in my family at all ages. Not to mention rampant diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and severe mental illness. Most of the men on my moms side didn’t live much past 60 that we’re aware of. And that’s just the stuff i know of!
I have no doubt there’s plenty more that people took to the grave without disclosing, or never knew about for themselves because they never saw a doctor in their lives.
the question you could ask yourself might be “would you like to be born again, as your child, if you could?” that would give you a clear indication of whether it’s worth it.
That’s why adoption is the best option. It’s not your fault they exist, but they need a loving home.
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Yup! I just adopted two dogs from a kill shelter. Best choice I have ever made.
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adoption is actually surprisingly expensive and difficult, and they vet the shit out of potential parents, heavily discourages single parents if there ever has been one. thats why some of them take advantage of going overseas to adopt. fostering might be more better.
Adopting a 7 year old or older is the best option. There are 36 couples waiting to adopt for every infant that is up for adoption in the US. The older kids get largely ignored and will likely age out of foster care without ever finding a forever family.
oh yea, i heard they view it like a buying a puppy for a birthday, they dont want some “damaged goods” they want brand new they can mold.
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It’s not that I don’t want kids, it’s more that they have created a world so fucked that I can barely even exist in it myself.
Exactly. You have to have a very comfortable life if the idea of having a kid doesn’t scare the shit out of you… that or you’re the type of person that doesn’t give a shit about your kids.
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What’s it to you if I don’t want the fucking effort. I’m not your fucking baby making machine. You can get all the way fucked.
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Yeah, I plan on living out the rest of this fucking nightmare with the little thats afforded to me and that does not involve burdening some poor soul with consciousness in world that only wants to exploit them.
Having a job isn’t being exploited
What is it?
what are your stakes in the game? what does it cost you if you’re wrong and having children does indeed turn out to be a mistake? are you gonna pay for the damages? if not, then you have no right to tell people what to do.
I’m just not going to work for their pension and I will not have my kid work for their pension
You are emblematic of the selfish mentality so many people have these days, which is a meaningful part of why I personally don’t want to have kids
As long as you take care of your own pension then it’s all fine. Do whatever you want.
You should be forced to live like an average Indonesian (or Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian) for a month and see how you deal with that life.
My wife has been an indonesian all her life and her family does pretty well. She and her sisters have university degrees. Her sisters both are married, have 2 or 1 kid.
It’s all pretty fine. Labour is very cheap but so is the cost of living. They barely have any old people and a high labour force. Their economy has been booming.
Maybe you should go there
I’m from India, you moron.
Their economy has been booming.
And how’s their ecology? They’re going to get hit by climate change pretty hard.
They choose a booming economy and development over ecology. Just like we did in Europe in the 1800s
Go tell them to stop developing their economy because we want everyone to be emission neutral. While we are developed enough to achieve that already.
You really like keeping people poor
Whatever dude. Stay delusional.
Today’s Headline: US government investigating ways to send US citizens without trial to El Salvadoran concentration camp.
Tomorrows Headline: Birth rates plummet in unprecedented and unexpected collapse.
Except for the part where the fertility rate in El Salvador is higher than it is in the USA. If we’re becoming more like them, our fertility rate should be increasing.
I don’t think that was the point they were making…
It sounds like the point they’re trying to make is that Americans don’t want to have children because things in the USA are getting bad, but if that was the correct explanation then we would expect to see (1) people in countries where it’s worse having even fewer children, which we don’t see, and (2) people in countries where it’s better having more children, which we also don’t see.
It’s annoying to repeatedly read the same completely unsupported explanations for fertility rate declines.
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I mean, might it not be so much the actual conditions themselves so much as the perception of the future state of those conditions? I imagine bad conditions that one is already used to, that one perceives as potentially getting somewhat better or at least not that much different, feel different than relatively good but tenuous conditions that one expects to lose with time. Losing things often feels worse than simply not having them in the first place after all.
Generally, people in poorer countries have more children. It’s a necessity for survival. They need the children to care for them in their old age. There is no pension, or Medicare or healthcare or nursing homes. Instead the family shares the load. In wealthier countries, we are meant to pay for 8t in conjunction with available social services and programs.
However, all things being equal, people have less children if they are pessimistic about the future.
if that was the correct explanation then we would expect to see (1) people in countries where it’s worse having even fewer children, which we don’t see, and (2) people in countries where it’s better having more children, which we also don’t see.
That’s not how things work. In fact, that’s practically the opposite of how things work. Increased access to educational opportunities for women is strongly correlated with lowered fertility rates. It’s a well-known pattern. Or another way to frame it, is that poorly-educated women are more likely to have more children.
Part of the pattern is missing from this picture too - before this baby bust, was the baby boom, and before the baby boom, child mortality was a lot higher. A lot of medical advancements took place around the middle of the 20th century, which resulted in more children surviving to adulthood. Prior to this, people typically had many children because so many of them wouldn’t survive. It takes time for a society to adjust to higher life expectancies, resulting in a period where people continue to have many children just like their own parents did, despite no longer needing to.
However, those high rates don’t last. People adjust to the new health expectations, leading the next generation to have fewer children than the one before.
Add in other factors of a prosperous state, such as educational opportunities and access to comprehensive healthcare (which would include birth control), and it makes sense that “countries where it’s worse” would have more children, and “countries where it’s better” would have fewer. (Check the link above for more explanation. It goes into way more detail.)
I think the mistake you’re making here is that you’re comparing living conditions as they are today.
When you conceive a child today, however, that child is gonna be sentient over a timespan of maybe 80 years, with a significant part of that being decades in the future.
You can guess now that it doesn’t matter how the living conditions today are. It matters how the living conditions in the next decades are going to be.
Skateparkge
crazy, house prices also doubled/quadrupled during that time. i wonder if theres a connection?
something places asia seems to ignore, but they insist of encouraging sex but nothing to accomadate the mother and child once they are born. they just want them to be born, thats about it.
housing is the biggest reason, certain job prospects in many degreed fields are pretty dismal as it is, cost of raising a child is also huge too and daycare.
How about “Number of Americans who responsibly agree not to raise kids into poverty doubled in 20 years”
40 years of raising the burden on the middle class without applicable wages will do that to a society.
Raising what burden you say? Wages to cost of living.
This. If you don’t have kids there are basically no support systems to start a family. Wages aren’t high enough and it looks like a daunting task. But if you have kids, suddenly you can qualify for food stamps and assistance(which is good). The system is basically set up to help prevent you from failing once you’ve already done it, but not to set you up to do it successfully beforehand. To have kids, you basically have to say “fuck it, we’ll just figure it out”. A lot of people aren’t willing to take that risk.
suddenly you can qualify for food stamps and assistance(
I wouldn’t bet on that being a sure thing in a couple of months/years :)
neither is medicaid/medicare, republicans are so dependant on too.
When I was younger I always figured I would be ready for kids some day. At the current rate of progress, that some day will be when I’m about 170, which is still a few decades before I’ll be able to retire.
You would be categorized in the study as “childless” - wanting children but being unable to have them - and thus would not be part of the headline statistic.
The way the article describes it, they seem to mean infertile rather than simply not prepared. Since I am (as far as I know) entirely capable of having kids, it would mean I am in either the not yet parents or childfree category, depending on whether I still plan to have kids.
I’ll have kids when Republicans apologize for electing Donald Trump. So I’m going to need two apologies. In the official party platform.
“We sincerely regret the extremely dark places our ideology led this country. Everyone who opposed us since Nixon was right about everything, and here are the steps we are taking to prevent this in the future.”
I think voting in a strongman leader who restores traditional family values like poverty, political violence and death camps will totally reverse this trend.
Too real.
Yup. Probably some of you guys remember a TV series with the plot of women being used as birth machines due to some global crises. At that time it was just a plot of a TV series. Today, I’m not sure about that anymore.
there was a movie that one of the plots was using “braind dead” woman kept alive by machines and used as birthing incubators. Another show BSG, the cylons used woman in the hoped to reproduce with them, ironically hooked up to machines as well tob e birthing mares.
no shit. Everying is too expensive. Between housing and education, you have lifelong debt. Who the fuck wants that for their children?
Not to mention the knowledge of bringing kids into a world where we know the future is only going to get worse.
Originally I never wanted kids because it sounded like it’d get in the way of all the other stuff I want to do in life.
Now I don’t because I see it as unethical.
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You’re retired at 47? There’s isn’t a single thought you could come up with that anyone wants to listen to after you drop that gem.
What’s your problem? If you had a financial windfall that meant you could retire, are you saying you wouldn’t?
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Just because you are miserable and jealous, doesn’t mean everyone else is also.
I want kids, but the government is doing their damndest to make it as difficult as possible for us by crashing the economy, cutting all federal programs, staffing agencies with NPCs, etc. Give generous paternity leave stipulations, tax credits, legalize surrogacy, and give credits for AI (artificial insemination) and surrogacy. Not to mention universal healthcare and child care credits.
Make it easy for us to have kids, and we will, lol. Quit cockblocking us.
Quit cockblocking us
It’s more like semen blocking
“I wanna be a fireman when I grow up!”
rubs kids hair
(He doesn’t have a future)
^ that’s why. I’m not raising someone on the idea that their life will be complete shit because there’s zero proof to the contrary.
Trust me. It’s crushing raising a child right now In America. I have to navigate these weird questions without scaring the shit out of him. Hes almost 10, and is too sweet for the world we exist in now. He shouldn’t have to bear the weight of our future, but people who like trump don’t deserve a future, and God forgive those who opposed my child. Fuck my life but I’ll go nuclear for my child.
They made life an unbearable nightmare. I refuse to bring another life into this world against it’s will, born into an unnecessary struggle against an upper class that only sees us as chattel to be used as exploitable labor
It’s hard enough to not paint the ceiling red. It would be cruel to bring kids into the hell.
I’m right there with you, not to mention it takes 2 to have kids and I’ve been single for a decade now. I’m only sticking around until my older family members are gone so I don’t hurt too many people, but after that I’m out.
I have no interest in seeing just how god awful the future will be while knowing I’ll never retire and will be stuck forever renting someones basement/garage.
Yup. Staying alive for the parents. After that, fuck it.
Could you imagine wasting the rest of your life to make the world a better place? Since you are alreay alive, what do you need to create a future worth living with others who think alike?
So uh… Related question: Do corporations have insurance in the event of someone turning themself into a fine red mist that would be expensive to clean up on their property? 🤔
You bring up an interesting point. My plan was to go deep into the woods somewhere and eat a shotgun so no one had to have the displeasure of finding me, but maybe it would be better if I went to the law firm that represents Nestle or something and ruin their day.
Neat part is if you don’t have family, it’s completely some banks problem.
how god awful the future will be while knowing I’ll never retire and will be stuck forever renting someones basement/garage
Could you imagine wasting the rest of your life to make the world a better place? Since you are alreay alive, what do you need to create a future worth living with others who think alike?
Dont you think its pure hubris to suggest others effect this change in the world? Do not blame those who are just trying to tread water along lifes river, your not them, and you dont know their story.
The choice to reproduce is a confidence check on an individuals feelings about the future, and right now, the world is rolling 1s & 2s.
Who but common people can effect this change? The elite won’t change anything.
Instead of shooting oneself, why not take a shot at making the world a better place?
There are already three people in this thread who are waiting to die because they don’t like this world. That could be the foundation of a group that turns the world into a better place. They don’t have a use for their mind and body so they are free to dedicate them to a good cause.
Its a clear violation of the weekend saftey brief.
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Do NOT add to the population
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Do NOT subtract from the population
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Do NOT end up in the newspaper, hospital or jail
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If you do end up in jail, establish dominance quickly
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Could you imagine wasting the rest of your life to make the world a better place?
I don’t have enough words for fuck right all the way off.
I’ve spent my life trying to make things a better place. I’ve been trying to pick people up, to learn, to fight hate, to get one step ahead, to educate, to do everything short of pulling out a whip just to get people to do the bare minimum to enact change in their life and vote. Yet I’ve been shown in more evidence that people are far more interested in their football teams (both literal and political) than making things better for people, have no desire to actually learn, and that hatred prevails. I’m tired and everyone is yelling at us to fight when I’ve been trying to rally to fight for the past goddamn decade… and even then I see the people calling to fight and it’s a bunch of people who are yelling to go out and do it without actually getting up to do the bare minimum to help another fucking human. And you want to come at me with that phrasing?
So lets be blunt. I’m tired of this fight. You want to save the world, best of luck to you. I’ll be in my corner and do the little things I can to survive and help those that need help do the same until the reason for survival is gone then I can wander off. Y’all (and by that I mean the rest of the world) can save yourselves, or burn, without my help just fine. It was funny years ago when I started saying “Call me Cassandra” when the things I was told I was overreacting came to pass. It’s stopped being funny for a long time now.
Would you allow others to join you in your corner in the world and create a team Cassandra?
It should be easier to form a new team than to change existing teams. Once the new team lives a happy life, the other teams will want to copy it. Without that proof, people prefer to stick to the known misery they can control instead of trying something new.
what do you need to create a future worth living with others who think alike?
Money, influence, a brain worth a shit. I’m just a worthless factory schmuck, incapable of much more than I currently do.
Change doesn’t come from one person having an idea but from the population picking up an idea. Whatever you support has a bigger chance of improving the world.
That’s really sad. Not the kid part but the other. I hope you’re able to get some help because people almost certainly care about you.
I have not enjoyed life since part way through elementary school and I have wanted to end it since middle school. I am now in my early 30s. My parents care and are the main reason I keep going, but I have come extremely close numerous times. Honestly, it makes sense with how I have been treated by society, people, and life. At this point I am mostly numb and dead inside so that helps.
honestly, same. the only thing that keeps me going is some weird and irrational hope that things will get better in the future. i can feel that, but i can’t explain it rationally. if i didn’t have that hope, i’d go crazy. Like, what even is this mess?
Could you imagine wasting the rest of your life to make the world a better place? Since you are alreay alive, what do you need to create a future worth living with others who think alike?
As someone with kids, I don’t blame modern society, honestly. I tell my own kids to think long and hard before they have kids themselves. Life isn’t easy and I never really thought I would have kids, but I did it.
I would never trade them in for freedom or childless life. They did change me and, in a ton of ways, make me a better person.
But I would never judge anyone for not having kids.
Thanks for being a parent in a hard time. A lot of us didn’t have kids so that the kids that do exist have more resources and leverage for jobs. Let your kids know that A LOT of adults care about them, not just the ones they see with families.
