I ask this question because many anti-natalist points have in the last years gone mainstream and this includes the view that it’s unethical to bring a child into our current messed up world. I myself have had to battle with this view because me and my partner have wanted children since we were children ourselves and being challenged on that from a ethical perspective have forced us to really think about it closely.
When I think of my own birth I view of it as a very positive thing. I really can’t say life has been perfect or without troubles but I mostly enjoy life as it is both today and when I was younger, even with everything going on. So would I have chosen to be birthed again? I absolutely would! However this does not support myself having children because this could only rectify my own parents decision to have me. While I do know I have enjoyed my own life I can’t know in advance if my future children will enjoy life. The question is, will my own children born in the 2020s have liked to have been born?
This is of course an impossible question to answer since it requires predicting the future. I think 2015 was better than 2025. But how will 2035 be? How about 2100? My potential children will live so far into the future it’s incredibly hard to know if the world will be good or bad at the end, or even the middle of their lives. However if a life is not worth living it must be an absolutely horrific and torterous experience. Is that really where we are headed? Is it really gonna get THAT bad? Well that depends on how optimistic/pessimistic you are. No one actually knows what it is gonna be like.
There is one point however that I think is not discussed enough and that is about who are the ones having children? No this is not about the immigrants or muslims or whatever you have heard from the far right in regards to this. No this is about the fact that today if you are conservative, without a college degree and highly religious then you’re much more likely to have children. If all of us liberal and educated folks stop having kids what will the world look like? According to current projections the US will be majority amish by 2233. Is that the future we want? If conservatives and especially ultra-conservatives are the only ones having children then the liberal movement will have to be fighting an uphill battle if their only members are “converts” from those brought up in conservative households. That can’t end well can it? If I manage to raise reasonable and well brought up people, then that will improve the life quality of other people as well wouldn’t it? But at the same time I can’t expect my children to become future politicians who will save our decaying world. What are you all’s thoughts about this?
The longer I exist I in this world the more upset I am that I was born without consent. I cannot imagine being a child born to the world that exists today, no way I could ever forgive a parent bringing me into this, at least in the US.
I really regret to hear that you feel that way about your own existence. I really don’t want to cause someone to exist who then regrets their own existence in such a way. I would be very interested to know what went wrong in your life and what your parents could have done differently. Or is it perhaps not the fault of your parents but the world at large that is to blame?
Have you considered adoption? There are SO many kids out there who need loving homes. If you’re worries about children regretting their existence, at least you could provide a safe place for those that are already here and also fulfill your desire to be a parent.
Are there really that many kids who need adopting? What I have heard there are far fewer domestic kids who need adoptive parents than there are people willing to adopt if you are looking at young children under 3. This causes a lot of people to adopt internationally which is insanely expensive, often very dubious ethically and a bureaucratic nightmare. A lot of source countries for adoption have banned international adoption in the last years making the supply lower than ever. Adopting internationally does not mean you’re giving a child a home who wouldn’t otherwise have one. No you’re just competing against other prospective parents. The child would just get adopted by another family.
What is available domestically and where one can actually do real good are older children, mostly male, around the ages 12-17 who come from abusive households. The people who adopt from this category are real heroes and do enormous good to the world. However this is a totally different endeavour that not all are able to tackle. Many of these kids are violent, criminal and may despite their young age already have drug addiction problems. It really is a lot and is often a real physical threat to the adoptive parent. I have considered it but right now I’m not ready for it. It also closes the possibility for your own biological children in the future because having a violent older step sibling can ruin your childhood and I wouldn’t want to do that to my kid. Maybe when I’m much older I’ll consider it. Those kids deserve loving parents too and arguably need them more than anyone else.
Yeah it’s mostly the world and everyone in it. I try to give my parents grace for the decision they made before the internet existed and before the reality of the world was so widely known. But if I were born in the last ~10 years or so, I don’t think I could ever get over it?
Then again, being born today and not experiencing what the world could be like with decorum, maybe it’s not as traumatic to have never experienced it?
maybe it’s not as traumatic to have never experienced it?
There is zero trauma in nonexistence; there is indeed nothing at all, which includes all happy memories as well. No garlic pesto pizza, no Andor season 2, music, sports, games, Lemmy…
This post about why we should bother to stay alive is probably relevant and interesting: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/38873684
Bold of you to assume I was born and didn’t appear fully-formed from the forehead of Zeus.
Having kids is always an act of selfishness. You don’t do it because you are trying to ‘gift’ life to the child. You do it because you think it will make you happy. Look at your reasons.
“me and my partner have wanted children since we were children” There’s your reason. You have the biological imperative. You want your genetics to continue.
" if a life is not worth living it must be an absolutely horrific and torterous experience." That’s life. ‘Worth’ is purely subjective. Objectively, life is worthless. If you have the right genetics and circumstances, you can ignore this fact, but it’s always there.
“If all of us liberal and educated folks stop having kids what will the world look like?” This is just the ideological version of the biological imperative, the idea of ‘my ideas must be passed down’ instead of ‘my genes.’ But it is based on faulty assumptions. It assumes your kids wouldn’t become fascists just because you aren’t. It assumes the children of members of a political party will automatically join the same one when they grow up. Why would you assume this? Do you have the same views as your parents? Grandparents?
If you want to have your kids, go ahead, but don’t delude yourself that it’s your gift to the leftist cause or to the child. It’s a way to scratch your biological itch to be a parent, just as much as masturbation and sex.
Calling it selfishness implies one only does it for himself/herself and no other reason. I don’t think that’s always true. At the same time it’s not a totally selfless act either. For me it has to be a positive to both me and the child or else it wouldn’t be worth it. Currently I can’t know if the child will enjoy life or not. But if I somehow knew the child would only suffer in life I would absolutely refuse to have that child. But I can’t know and that makes this complicated.
I think I can connect this back to the comment I made about adoption. I could adopt a baby and be just as happy with that as if I had a biological one because to me that is a comparable experience. However I wouldn’t adopt a violent and problematic teenager. Doing so would probably decrease my life quality and endanger my and my partners life. For the calculation to work I want both me and the child to have good lives. I admit it’s not a totally selfless act. But it’s not a totally selfish act either.
For the ideological stuff I don’t have that as a main reason personally but brought up because I think it’s important in a broader perspective. It’s absolutely true that one parent’s ideology has a huge influence on a child’s future. The Amish for example has only ¼ of those born in the community eventually leaving. And how many join the Amish? About zero. It’s a religious movement solely run by those born into it. However the high rate for the Amish is extraordinarily high when looking at other religions and this is because ones ideology is not only influenced by one’s parents but by one’s community as well.
There are a lot of people who were born in conservative or religious households and only left that ideology when they started interacting with people outside the family, for many that’s highschool or College. Internet as well in today’s era. The Amish keep so many because they have their own closed community. However think about it like this. If only one category of people had kids of ideology x. Then all kids would start out with that. In addition they won’t talk to people with a different ideology at school or college or maybe not even youth oriented internet because all other children were also born into ideology x. Suddenly they end up in a bubble and converting them would be much harder. For any other movement but ideology x it would be an uphill battle. Again having children for this sole reason would be stupid in my opinion. But it was a worrying thought of mine when I see through the statistics of who is actually having children nowadays.
For me personally, absolutely not. I genuinely believe that the world would have been better off without my existence disrupting the natural order.
But, as another comment has said, you go off of the hand you are dealt. If you believe that you have both the resources and the correct mentality to bring new children into the world and raise them, then absolutely do it. The fact that you’re thinking about it this much is already a great sign, as most parents I’ve known just don’t think or care and just randomly have babies, and then are constantly frustrated with the children afterwards. Just be really sure it’s what you want for the rest of your life.I genuinely believe that the world would have been better off without my existence disrupting the natural order.
- How was your birth “unnatural” (by inference of your wording)?
- Since you’re still alive, then is this no longer the case? Obviously I’m not condoning your death, but by deduction then this should be “believed” at one point and no longer now—unless you mean that you think you’re actively choosing to be selfish by continuing to live, I suppose.
- I was moreso referring to my actual ‘being’ as unnatural, as I have a collection of disorders and oddities that make me unable to fit into society and just feel like a burden more than anything else. My wording isn’t the best here.
- I kind of wish that were the case, but it’s mostly the opposite. I’m still alive because I wish to help out my friends as much as I can before I go, but also I’m a coward and don’t really have the luxury of ending things early. I have debts to pay and sometimes I’m in the position where I can lend a helping hand, so that’s at least something. But no, I wish that I could go, but I cannot.
If I could push a button that removed me from the timeline, I would.
no but like
My own birth was not a good thing for me and keeps getting worse.
I definitely would not be ok being born in the current state of the world… Or México, if we are talking locally.If you intend to have kids, immigrate first (assuming you’re in the US). There are places in the world where future children can grow to lead happy lives, but America ain’t it anymore. To answer your question though: Yeah, I am happy to have been born.
There aren’t many, if any, places on the world that still looks safe or will look safe for long. Of course some will hold out longer if no global catastrophe hits and things just keep falling apart piece by piece.
If I could flip a switch and cease to exist I would
I have five kids. Three of them step and two natural. Hasn’t always been easy for them or us, but I wouldn’t change a thing.
That being said, I’m not sure a lower birth rate isn’t a good thing. If folks don’t want kids for whatever reason, that’s fine, too. Just don’t impose those viewpoints on others.
I do think the hard religious/trad wife/have a dozen kids thing is pretty evil, but that separate from just having kids. My oldest daughter will be having a baby this summer and I think they are only having one, and we very much support both decisions (to have one and not to have any more).
I dont think people impose so much as believe people who end up with children are often irresponsible or have selfish reasons to use their children for their own profit or other selfish ego-based reasons.
Enough people have the 18 and your out on your ass into the orphan crushing machine attitude which is not great either. Life is fucking hard and ir sucks that people with no parenting skills or empathy are the ones who tend to throw caution to the wind and do whateve they want all the time
Similar boat here, but I brought three kids and my wife brought two.
The oldest will finish college next year, and the next two oldest will be graduating from high school at the same time.
Right now, none of them seem interested in ever having kids. Maybe it’s a generational change, maybe it’s individual, because even as a kid, I looked forward to growing up and having kids of my own.
For me, I don’t see my birth as good. If I think about my parents lives, any happy moment with me can just as easy have been a happy moment for them for a different reason. Then from there I’ve just been a hefty financial and emotional burden. Same goes for other family members. I don’t really have any close friends so I don’t think I’m having much impact there. My job isn’t some massive boon to society. My partner is the only person I think might be worse off, but even then I still think she could be doing better.
I know dying now would definitely hurt everyone, so I’m not suicidal. But when I’m getting hit hard with those negative thoughts, they’re almost always wishing I just hadn’t been born.
Having found a strong and lasting romance, this isn’t even a question for me. I would never deprive my partner of what we’ve been lucky enough to make together. Obviously you never know what else might have been, but it would be madness to roll those dice again. Throwing away a happy life in hopes of higher highs? That sounds like the second act of a really tedious allegory.
All this to agree from another perspective with those who also said: You play the hand. Life is not “about” anything that happened to you, it’s about the choices you’ve made and what they meant.
No the fucking dipshits who raised me selfishly put their own dreams as a priority at the expense of me.
I was a mistake and I knew it from a young age, especially with how much they valued material things over me.
You play the hand you are dealt.
We are only here because a long unbroken line of ancestors were successful in reproducing, even in adverse conditions
Of course that’s true. However what is the conclusions of this? Should our long unbroken line of ancestors who reproduced end or should it continue? That’s the big question of it all.
That is up to you!
Evolution has selected for people who want to continue, those who are happy to fade away don’t stay in the gene pool.
I’ve wanted to die for like 20 years now, and came close 5 times (only one was at my own hand). If the world let me I wouldn’t be here. So no, it really wasn’t
