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General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Harmony on May 09, 2023, 04:06:43 PM
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Full disclosure - one of my adult kids has had this conversation with me. But this was years ago and not the reason why I'm posting this poll.
I'm mostly curious as to how thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes are changing around having kids. Maybe they aren't, but I think they are.
Mods - I debated putting this in P&R as I can see it veering into those topics so feel free to move it if you think best.
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Mods - I debated putting this in P&R as I can see it veering into those topics so feel free to move it if you think best.
I think it merits general discussion (it's more a parenting question in my view) but if it veers towards P/R we can create an off-shoot topic.
As for me: it's their life, and I don't see any reason why its certain to be detrimental to them. There are plenty of happy people without kids and plenty of miserable shitty parents in the world, so they should go for whatever they think is best for them.
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I will fully support my future children in any decision they make.
Criminal activity or hurting other people not included of course.
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I choose 'None of the above - let me explain in the comments.' I firmly believe that the decision to have or not have children is an intensely personal one, and it's not my place to agree or disagree with it. As a parent, my role is to provide guidance, support, and love to my children, even as they grow into adults and make their own life choices. I trust my child to make the decisions that are best for them, and I will continue to support them in their journey. That being said, I'm always open for a conversation if they wish to discuss any aspect of their decision further. The most important thing for me is their happiness and fulfillment in life, whether that includes children or not.
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I choose 'None of the above - let me explain in the comments.' I firmly believe that the decision to have or not have children is an intensely personal one, and it's not my place to agree or disagree with it. As a parent, my role is to provide guidance, support, and love to my children, even as they grow into adults and make their own life choices. I trust my child to make the decisions that are best for them, and I will continue to support them in their journey. That being said, I'm always open for a conversation if they wish to discuss any aspect of their decision further. The most important thing for me is their happiness and fulfillment in life, whether that includes children or not.
I chose the Full Support selection, and I agree with all of this.
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My parents couldn't give two shits, but they have four grandchildren already. I think that comes into play. If I were say an only child and came to this, it might be different but even then my parents probably would just be like, meh.
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I never felt I needed kids in my life. Obviously I wouldn't trade my kids for anything right. I feel the same about grandchildren. It all depends on my 20 y/o and I have no idea what'll happen with him.
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My almost 21yo son has been saying this for years. If my 19yo daughter has any thoughts on the subject, she hasn't shared them with me.
Obviously, it's up to them. If I were one of those people who really wanted grandkids, I might have more in depth chats with them, but I'm really not. I've never understood the appeal of babies (even when I had my own). While it might be cool if I had grandkids involved in sports, I have no burning desire to re-live those years. I guess that's a very long winded way of saying I don't so much care one way or the other.
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My stepson and his partner have a dog, and my wife is resigned to that being it. :lol
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This is tough.
My wife and I very much want children and are having problems doing so. I just had surgery to better our chances and she's dealing with some stuff too. So kids are very important to us.
So if we ended up with just one kid and that kid said they never wanted children, that would be really hard for us. Ultimately we'd love and support them and respect their wishes, but it would hurt and it'd be something we'd struggle with for sure. Not to the point where we actively try to change their mind, but just on our own, it'd be a real challenge.
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I would not personally mind if they do not choose to want children. Maybe they might have a change of heart down the road of life, but that is not up for me to decide, it's up to them and only them.
Although, I would discuss with them about why humans have children, and the cultural reasons given for the community wanting a child to be born. But then too, it would be great if they already have a grasp of this concept and how culture does play into a humans perception for having a baby by the time they're an adult.
If I am being honest, it's a different type of discussion to be had with either your son or daughter. Because then it get's into the birthing of the term "Sperm Donor", where a man impregnates a women and the women decides to have the child, either knowing or not knowing who the father is. Thus, the man does not know that he does in fact have a child out there. This is where I would tell my son to be careful and aware If he does not want to have a child, he needs to wear protection or just get a vasectomy done, if he is that hardcore about not wanting a child.
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As someone who personally has never wanted to have children, I'm on the full support bandwagon. The cost in money, time, body, mind and social life isn't worth it (for me). Whatever their reason, it's their choice.
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I wanted to combine "Attitudes like this will be the end of civilization as we know it" and "Good! I wish more people felt this way!" but I can only pick one, so I'll go with the full support option. I suppose that's what I'd roll with IRL. Thankfully, since I don't have kids, it'll never come up, though.
I'm actually the very end of a big branch of the Barto family tree, going back to about 1900 or so. Neither I, my brother, nor my cousins have ever wanted kids, so that's that. And something I've noticed is that I tend to associate with the childless by choice crowd to a pretty big degree. With one exception none of my closest friends have kids, and the exception has largely lived a child-free existence as long as I've known her. Sucks when people you're close to suddenly become fundamentally different.
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I support it. Initially, my wife and I did not want kids until we saw her brother raising their kids. We felt like we were missing out on some aspect of life.
What I think really needs to be discussed is the reverse - child free couples that don't show respect towards those with kids. Whether it's scoffing at noisy kids in public (I used to be one of these) to people like my own brother, who choose to not have a relationship with their niece and nephew. I used to be really awkward with kids and at time I still am when it comes to other kids, but to turn up your nose at your own immediate family is hurtful.
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It kind of baffles me that parents would take exception to a decision their child makes about such a life changing decision.
I guess some parents think their kids owe them grandchildren? Seems a pretty old school mentality if that's the case.
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She hasn't told me directly, but I'm sure this is my kid as well. It's her life, and decisions as huge as this are hers and hers alone to make.
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There are two factors for me in my reaction:
1. Their relationship status. Being happily married makes it way easier to picture having kids. Prior to that point point, it's much more difficult to imagine life with kids.
2. Their age. I think a lot of people (women in particular) feel a pull to have kids once they reach their mid-30s or once their friends or siblings are having kids.
So basically, if they are young and single, I'd say positive things, but would be thinking "just wait and see, I bet you'll change your mind later." If they are older and in a long term relationship and are still saying they don't want kids, I'd be supportive, but would internally be disappointed, for the lack of grandchildren from that child, and because kids are amazing and it's difficult to picture a life as fulfilling for my child without children of their own.
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I'm child free by choice. What my parents think about it, I don't really give a fuck.
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Well, I have to admit I am pleasantly surprised so far at the results of the poll and the responses here.
I am in the camp that initially said I didn't want kids and then changed my mind. But that 7 years after getting married and before I got pregnant were really tough. So much pressure was put on me (us) - almost the first question people would ask us is, "When are you having kids?" Like it was a given. I got even more pressure from my extended family to "carry on the family genes" and stuff like that.
And while I do hear Grappler's point about people having tolerance for noisy kids in public - we also have plenty of stories around parents making horrible choices about bringing young children to places where they have expressly been asked not to come (weddings for example) or where they are generally not well tolerated (movies, the theater, high end fine dining restaurants) so that awareness and tolerance needs to go both ways. Time/place is important. Also even in a family friendly atmosphere don't completely ignore your kid while they run like hellions around and get into other people's spaces. We've all seen that too. I think that is what drives the scoffing attitude more than anything.
So this research study looks at the growing numbers of people choosing not to have kids and the reasons why. I thought it was interesting.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/
Main reasons non-parents younger than age 50 don't want children seem to be in order of importance: 1) they just don't want them 2) medical reasons 3) financial reasons 4) do not have a partner 5) their age/partner's age 6) state of the world 7) climate change/environmental reasons 8) partner doesn't want to
These reasons shift a bit for people who are already parents which makes sense because at that point you really understand the physical, mental, and financial toll parenting takes on you. In the US the way our healthcare system is set up and the growing financial burdens placed on families it appears these numbers of people remaining child free by choice will only continue to grow.
I've seen some reactions to this information as extremely alarmist - "the end of civilization as we know it" stuff and personally I can't help but see it as a good thing. The world's resources continue to dwindle and are not finite. I guess it depends on whether or not you want the world to implode faster or slower. :P
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I was waivering between 'full support' and 'respect but disagree'......and landed on 'I respect your decision but disagree with it'
Reason being, I think being a parent and raising kids is something we're designed to do....and while it's extremely taxing and hard at times....the 'good' FAR outweighs the bad and I think it just completes the life experience. I 100% respect folks who have decided not to have kids....my younger brother being one of them. It's a huge decision to make having kids because your life is altered in a way that's indescribable. But I personally cannot imagine not being a father.
My heart breaks for couples like Adami and his wife who are experiencing difficulties having children. My sister in law and her husband tried for 6 years and countless treatments until they finally had twins....but I saw the toll first hand it took on them. Then the flipside is you have irresponsible individuals who get pregnant on a whim and don't appreciate how special that can be. Anyway....
Should my sons decide not to have kids....I'll 'respect' it. It's their life. But I will try my best to describe or get across to them what a huge section of life they'd be missing out on.
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And while I do hear Grappler's point about people having tolerance for noisy kids in public - we also have plenty of stories around parents making horrible choices about bringing young children to places where they have expressly been asked not to come (weddings for example) or where they are generally not well tolerated (movies, the theater, high end fine dining restaurants) so that awareness and tolerance needs to go both ways. Time/place is important. Also even in a family friendly atmosphere don't completely ignore your kid while they run like hellions around and get into other people's spaces. We've all seen that too. I think that is what drives the scoffing attitude more than anything.
I completely agree - I wouldn't drag my kids to a place where they wouldn't be welcome or invited, like a wedding and respect the time and place for kids. My feelings generally come from certain family members and friends who are childless and I've basically lost all contact with as they enjoy their lives and don't seem to want to keep in touch with me or my kids.
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Fully respect.
Neither my wife or I feel our daughter should have kids. She is just not wired that way and it would be a disaster. My son is autistic and while I think he would be a good father, he would need a good partner to help fill in the emotional blanks in his brain.
It's funny, I wanted a boy to continue my family name and the bloodline. Now, I'm of the opinion that I think things would be better if neither of my kids have kids.
With my daughter, the fear is she'll have a kid like her and she won't be able to deal and will come to us. Dealing with that once was more than enough. I don't ever want to relive the hell she put us through.
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Well, I have to admit I am pleasantly surprised so far at the results of the poll and the responses here.
I am in the camp that initially said I didn't want kids and then changed my mind. But that 7 years after getting married and before I got pregnant were really tough. So much pressure was put on me (us) - almost the first question people would ask us is, "When are you having kids?" Like it was a given. I got even more pressure from my extended family to "carry on the family genes" and stuff like that.
And while I do hear Grappler's point about people having tolerance for noisy kids in public - we also have plenty of stories around parents making horrible choices about bringing young children to places where they have expressly been asked not to come (weddings for example) or where they are generally not well tolerated (movies, the theater, high end fine dining restaurants) so that awareness and tolerance needs to go both ways. Time/place is important. Also even in a family friendly atmosphere don't completely ignore your kid while they run like hellions around and get into other people's spaces. We've all seen that too. I think that is what drives the scoffing attitude more than anything.
So this research study looks at the growing numbers of people choosing not to have kids and the reasons why. I thought it was interesting.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/19/growing-share-of-childless-adults-in-u-s-dont-expect-to-ever-have-children/
Main reasons non-parents younger than age 50 don't want children seem to be in order of importance: 1) they just don't want them 2) medical reasons 3) financial reasons 4) do not have a partner 5) their age/partner's age 6) state of the world 7) climate change/environmental reasons 8) partner doesn't want to
These reasons shift a bit for people who are already parents which makes sense because at that point you really understand the physical, mental, and financial toll parenting takes on you. In the US the way our healthcare system is set up and the growing financial burdens placed on families it appears these numbers of people remaining child free by choice will only continue to grow.
I've seen some reactions to this information as extremely alarmist - "the end of civilization as we know it" stuff and personally I can't help but see it as a good thing. The world's resources continue to dwindle and are not finite. I guess it depends on whether or not you want the world to implode faster or slower. :P
I find those reasonings quite sad.
It's sad how the state of our human livelihood, our lifestyle is not beneficial at all. This gives reason to why some think humans are killing ourselves.
Its a lot to do with culture, and how humans choose to live. A humans lifestyle is why there are people who lived long lives, especially in places where there was no modern medical care. I find it hilarious how some people are baffled to how these people lived long lives. Hell, some cultures didn't even celebrate birthdays, there's no record of their people's age, so when you had others coming in trying to document their age, they just assumed their age and guessed based on their physical features. If this was done to me now, I would be 21 again, because I physically look that old. Guaranteed there were people who were way older than what was recorded.
In other words, it's the lifestyle of modernity which is causing humans to shift perceptions of how they sustain themselves and how they perceive the future to be. Based on those reasons, humans think the future will be bleak, and that's something to consider when discussing the future of humanity. The future of humanity depends on us having children and thriving. If not, things will die out, and even at that, civilizations and cultures will dwindle.
Japan is currently having a population crisis. It's now to the point where people not having children is beginning to effect the cultural society, by there being not enough young people to work to help those elderly who need medical care and other various aspects that society relies upon.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/asia/japan-births-2022-record-low-intl-hnk/index.html
No matter what you think, the realty is, in the longer-term, having children does affect how we humans live. It's effect on how we humans run our societies can become detrimental to it's entire function and structure.
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And while I do hear Grappler's point about people having tolerance for noisy kids in public - we also have plenty of stories around parents making horrible choices about bringing young children to places where they have expressly been asked not to come (weddings for example) or where they are generally not well tolerated (movies, the theater, high end fine dining restaurants) so that awareness and tolerance needs to go both ways. Time/place is important. Also even in a family friendly atmosphere don't completely ignore your kid while they run like hellions around and get into other people's spaces. We've all seen that too. I think that is what drives the scoffing attitude more than anything.
I completely agree - I wouldn't drag my kids to a place where they wouldn't be welcome or invited, like a wedding and respect the time and place for kids. My feelings generally come from certain family members and friends who are childless and I've basically lost all contact with as they enjoy their lives and don't seem to want to keep in touch with me or my kids.
Fascinating. Come to our weddings and receptions, there's kids galore because a wedding is a community event in my culture. It's not just familial, the entire community comes together. The crying, annoying, loud child could very well be the bride and grooms child. Weddings for us is a big thing we prepare for, there's also processes we follow until the time we do our "Native" weddings, that's what only matters to me, but then we also incorporate the Catholic traditions of marriage, so we can be married more than once. Then I have my other native tribes Wedding Traditions which is vastly different.
All these differences in cultures practices is why I find it difficult to lump all humans into the term "We" because "I" does not always follow the same as the collective "We".
All the culture is why I find it hilarious as well, you have some people worried about the culture and society to the point of not wanting children because of the hardships one would face due to how the current society operates. While, you have some who don't give a crap and will have kids. It's hilarious because who will be the future humans, and whose genealogy will be more present in the future?
I mean, if you want smarter people in the future and less dumb people, the wise choice would be for the smarter people to have children right?
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Fully support. In fact, both of my kids (27 and 20) have already let us know that they have no interest whatsoever in having kids.
And when I read in the news about all of the shitty parents doing shitty things out there, I wish more people would take this option.
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I guess I am the lone person who chose the "This will be the end of Civilization" option. And no, I'd never hang that guilt on any one person for their choice. But therein lies the problem. It's totally fair to not want kids, and I support it on an individual, case-by-case basis. But also, several developed nations are now facing imminent demographic collapse, and surely society is not sustainable when we've created a world where this becomes the default choice. A society without children is a culturally stagnant one. In a truly vibrant, flourishing society, there should be so many kids that the adults can barely keep them under control. And yet, here we are. We will NEVER see any meaningful change to our society, our way of life, our culture, or anything else while we are dying society.
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Fully support. In fact, both of my kids (27 and 20) have already let us know that they have no interest whatsoever in having kids.
And when I read in the news about all of the shitty parents doing shitty things out there, I wish more people would take this option.
What you just typed made me laugh even harder. You really think shitty humans give a crap about not wanting a child? They're more than likely shitty humans, because of how society is ran, society determines them to be shitty parents because of how society functions. Yet, those non-shitty humans are afraid to have children because of how society is ran. So who's more likely to running things in the future? The children of the shitty humans who are having children.
And if they are shitty humans, then the child will let them know once they grow into an adult. Then that child raised by shitty parents may break the cycle and choose not to raise their children the way they were raised. They won't want their children to experience the same hardships as them.
This is due to humans being humans. A shitty humans will continue being a shitty human. It's not the shitty humans fault that we humans are creatures that naturally reproduce.
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I guess I am the lone person who chose the "This will be the end of Civilization" option. And no, I'd never hang that guilt on any one person for their choice. But therein lies the problem. It's totally fair to not want kids, and I support it on an individual, case-by-case basis. But also, several developed nations are now facing imminent demographic collapse, and surely society is not sustainable when we've created a world where this becomes the default choice. A society without children is a culturally stagnant one. In a truly vibrant, flourishing society, there should be so many kids that the adults can barely keep them under control. And yet, here we are. We will NEVER see any meaningful change to our society, our way of life, our culture, or anything else while we are dying society.
Yes, modern society will die out because who will be there to run it all. Everything will have a detrimental effect as there are less humans available to meet the demands of the modern society.
All the pretty things we humans enjoy now won't be possible as there would not be enough humans to meet those demands. We already are experiencing what can happen when there are not enough people wanting to do the work. This is seen in the restaurant industry, as there people who don't see the stress as worth the amount they're getting paid.
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Yes, exactly, and you also see the consequences in our discourse, how rebuking the "zoomer" for their own values is daily trending rage-bait (see the "Quiet Quitting" thread, or anything to do with how younger people talk about sexuality/gender).
While we live in this Boomer world, the young will never have the numbers or clout to just flip us off, and do what they want to do. The trope of the flushed, unhinged, unconforming young person screaming for attention is just going to become a familiar thing as young people find it less and less possible to carve their own way of life away from cynical adults. It's only going to keep getting worse. Right now we live in a society that refuses to house young people. Society as a whole is going to be so much more cruel to future generations, as it places such an increasing level of burden on them.
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Fully support. In fact, both of my kids (27 and 20) have already let us know that they have no interest whatsoever in having kids.
And when I read in the news about all of the shitty parents doing shitty things out there, I wish more people would take this option.
What you just typed made me laugh even harder. You really think shitty humans give a crap about not wanting a child?
I don't think shitty humans give a crap about anything.
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Fully support. In fact, both of my kids (27 and 20) have already let us know that they have no interest whatsoever in having kids.
And when I read in the news about all of the shitty parents doing shitty things out there, I wish more people would take this option.
What you just typed made me laugh even harder. You really think shitty humans give a crap about not wanting a child?
I don't think shitty humans give a crap about anything.
They do give a crap about themselves.
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I would never push my agenda on anyone. It's a person or couple's right to choose if they want children or not.
In our case, the Queen and I tried for a long time. I got lymphoma, lost a lot of money and years went by. We tried in virto twice with no luck. Then bought a house and were too tight for adoption.
We are OK now but it hurt for decades though we couldn't have children.
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Me not wanting kids can be blamed on my dad. I inherited all his shitty personal mannerisms and I wouldn't wish that on any offspring. :loser:
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I choose 'None of the above - let me explain in the comments.' I firmly believe that the decision to have or not have children is an intensely personal one, and it's not my place to agree or disagree with it. As a parent, my role is to provide guidance, support, and love to my children, even as they grow into adults and make their own life choices. I trust my child to make the decisions that are best for them, and I will continue to support them in their journey. That being said, I'm always open for a conversation if they wish to discuss any aspect of their decision further. The most important thing for me is their happiness and fulfillment in life, whether that includes children or not.
This is me, and I chose consistent with MR. Not my business, really, but I'm here in any capacity to support and love you.
My son (stepson) has two children, so I'm technically a grandfather, and we love them silly, but my two daughters (one step, one biological) are both debating the child thing. Have at it, whatever works for you (though I would not be being honest if I didn't note that if it WAS my preference, my stepdaugher's partner is about as ready to be a parent as Lonestar is to vote for Trump).
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And while I do hear Grappler's point about people having tolerance for noisy kids in public - we also have plenty of stories around parents making horrible choices about bringing young children to places where they have expressly been asked not to come (weddings for example) or where they are generally not well tolerated (movies, the theater, high end fine dining restaurants) so that awareness and tolerance needs to go both ways. Time/place is important. Also even in a family friendly atmosphere don't completely ignore your kid while they run like hellions around and get into other people's spaces. We've all seen that too. I think that is what drives the scoffing attitude more than anything.
I completely agree - I wouldn't drag my kids to a place where they wouldn't be welcome or invited, like a wedding and respect the time and place for kids. My feelings generally come from certain family members and friends who are childless and I've basically lost all contact with as they enjoy their lives and don't seem to want to keep in touch with me or my kids.
Fascinating. Come to our weddings and receptions, there's kids galore because a wedding is a community event in my culture. It's not just familial, the entire community comes together. The crying, annoying, loud child could very well be the bride and grooms child. Weddings for us is a big thing we prepare for, there's also processes we follow until the time we do our "Native" weddings, that's what only matters to me, but then we also incorporate the Catholic traditions of marriage, so we can be married more than once. Then I have my other native tribes Wedding Traditions which is vastly different.
All these differences in cultures practices is why I find it difficult to lump all humans into the term "We" because "I" does not always follow the same as the collective "We".
All the culture is why I find it hilarious as well, you have some people worried about the culture and society to the point of not wanting children because of the hardships one would face due to how the current society operates. While, you have some who don't give a crap and will have kids. It's hilarious because who will be the future humans, and whose genealogy will be more present in the future?
I mean, if you want smarter people in the future and less dumb people, the wise choice would be for the smarter people to have children right?
Couple of things stood out to me in this post. I love that your culture embraces having children at events like weddings. But as I'm sure you know, plenty of people will expressly put in their wedding invitations that the celebration is an adults only affair. For whatever reason, that reason should be honored even if an attending guest doesn't like it. I'd guess at least 25% of AITA threads are about this very issue. LoL
About the bolded part above - I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion. I know plenty of extremely intelligent people who wind up getting pregnant without wanting to be and wind up being pretty shitty parents. And I know plenty of people with fairly low IQ or who have learning disabilities of some sort who wind up having kids who are straight A students and go on to very successful lives. It isn't cut and dried as your statement makes it out to be. And IMO if I - a fairly intelligent person - were to be on fence about wanting kids, your argument would not sway me in the slightest. I don't think children should be brought into the world with a job. A job like 'fix my parents relationship problems' or 'ensure future generations of smart people.'
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About the bolded part above - I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion. I know plenty of extremely intelligent people who wind up getting pregnant without wanting to be and wind up being pretty shitty parents. And I know plenty of people with fairly low IQ or who have learning disabilities of some sort who wind up having kids who are straight A students and go on to very successful lives. It isn't cut and dried as your statement makes it out to be. And IMO if I - a fairly intelligent person - were to be on fence about wanting kids, your argument would not sway me in the slightest. I don't think children should be brought into the world with a job. A job like 'fix my parents relationship problems' or 'ensure future generations of smart people.'
Agreed wholeheartedly.
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I guess I am the lone person who chose the "This will be the end of Civilization" option. And no, I'd never hang that guilt on any one person for their choice. But therein lies the problem. It's totally fair to not want kids, and I support it on an individual, case-by-case basis. But also, several developed nations are now facing imminent demographic collapse, and surely society is not sustainable when we've created a world where this becomes the default choice. A society without children is a culturally stagnant one. In a truly vibrant, flourishing society, there should be so many kids that the adults can barely keep them under control. And yet, here we are. We will NEVER see any meaningful change to our society, our way of life, our culture, or anything else while we are dying society.
I think you're talking - in that quote and your subsequent post - about something implicit in my answer (and someone else referenced it too). It ought to be the person's choice, "shitty person" or not (not my call to make whether someone else is a "shitty" person or not) but whoever makes their decision, it's theirs. Now, though, in our society, we have advocacy for EVERYTHING. People just can't STFU about pressing their viewpoint on others. I don't mean "sharing when asked" I mean FORCING (what I, I believe rightly, call "bullying") by creating stigmas for alternate viewpoints.
Yes, you are right: economically speaking there is an optimal development (birth) rate for sustainable nations. Many - including the US - are now well below that. The world will adapt, of course, the analysis at least in part empirical, but still.
I think this subject is a fantastic example of the complexity of the issues facing a national and global society, even as those national (for me, America) and global societies are less and less willing OR able to handle those complexities in any reasonable and defensible fashion.
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I don't have children, and I probably never will have. But if I would have, I would totally understand their choice and decision.
Also, it depends on WHY someone doesn't want children. They don't feel responsable enough? they fear the word is too ugly to raise a child in it? no money? they just don't like kids? all are valid reasons. It's not only life that matters - it's also the quality of life. I'd rather have a child not being born rather than seeing him / her live through a life of misery and neglect.
I'll just toss out a possibly "hard truth", or at the very least, a quite strong opinion: just because every couple can have children, it doesn't mean they should. There are countless couples who are totally unfit for being parents, but there will never be a proper and fair way to judge who's worthy and who's not unless we'd live in a dystopian society, so everyone has of course a right to have kids.... but so many people just shouldn't.
Also, I don't think civilization is at risk - there will always be people who will have children, I can't imagine we'd reach a point where the number of people not having kids vastly outnumbers the ones still having ones, so we're not at risk for extinction if just some more people decide that they can't give a child the stability, support and love every kid would deserve.
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I don't think very many people think humans are at risk of extinction due to lowering birth rates. I do think our entire economic system will be hurting in the next couple of generations, since it's basically built on having more and more people to buy shit and fund social security.
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I don't think very many people think humans are at risk of extinction due to lowering birth rates. I do think our entire economic system will be hurting in the next couple of generations, since it's basically built on having more and more people to buy shit and fund social security.
To some, a civilization collapse is considered the end of the world.
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I guess I am the lone person who chose the "This will be the end of Civilization" option. And no, I'd never hang that guilt on any one person for their choice. But therein lies the problem. It's totally fair to not want kids, and I support it on an individual, case-by-case basis. But also, several developed nations are now facing imminent demographic collapse, and surely society is not sustainable when we've created a world where this becomes the default choice. A society without children is a culturally stagnant one. In a truly vibrant, flourishing society, there should be so many kids that the adults can barely keep them under control. And yet, here we are. We will NEVER see any meaningful change to our society, our way of life, our culture, or anything else while we are dying society.
I think you're talking - in that quote and your subsequent post - about something implicit in my answer (and someone else referenced it too). It ought to be the person's choice, "shitty person" or not (not my call to make whether someone else is a "shitty" person or not) but whoever makes their decision, it's theirs. Now, though, in our society, we have advocacy for EVERYTHING. People just can't STFU about pressing their viewpoint on others. I don't mean "sharing when asked" I mean FORCING (what I, I believe rightly, call "bullying") by creating stigmas for alternate viewpoints.
Yes, you are right: economically speaking there is an optimal development (birth) rate for sustainable nations. Many - including the US - are now well below that. The world will adapt, of course, the analysis at least in part empirical, but still.
I think this subject is a fantastic example of the complexity of the issues facing a national and global society, even as those national (for me, America) and global societies are less and less willing OR able to handle those complexities in any reasonable and defensible fashion.
Unfortunately, this attitude is pretty common from people of my position (and I hold, basically, the generic Roman Catholic point of view). We don't change peoples minds about having kids by laying guilt into them, or telling them they're going to cause the collapse of Civilization by being so "selfish". Rather, we need to honor people's choices, on the individual level, while doing what we can to nudge "undecideds" over to the side of parenthood.
Barto summed it up pretty well too, being somewhere between "it'll be the collapse..." and "I wish more people would." The difference for me (and again, this is the stock RC opinion) is that there can never be too many people - and the idea that something as fundamental to the species as reproduction could ever been seen as unwanted or inconvenient should never enter our thinking. I get what Barto's saying, and I respect him enough to get a good chuckle out of it. Humanity are awful. That's why we need as many of us as possible to up the chances of a few good luminaries coming along and lighting our way.
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My youngest daughter (31) made the decision long ago not to have children. I think she was 17 or 18 when she started on birth control. Her reason? She's just too selfish and doesn't want some kid sapping away her resources (time and money) that she's worked for. It probably won't surprise you that I agree with her on the too selfish bit. :lol
My youngest son (28) doesn't seem interested enough in reality to ever find someone with which to breed. He'll probably be childless.
I support them both. Besides, the other children have given me seven grandchildren, so I'm just fine. :biggrin:
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My youngest daughter (31) made the decision long ago not to have children. I think she was 17 or 18 when she started on birth control. Her reason? She's just too selfish and doesn't want some kid sapping away her resources (time and money) that she's worked for. It probably won't surprise you that I agree with her on the too selfish bit. :lol
My youngest son (28) doesn't seem interested enough in reality to ever find someone with which to breed. He'll probably be childless.
I support them both. Besides, the other children have given me seven grandchildren, so I'm just fine. :biggrin:
The bolded is interesting. I have heard many, many people express the desire for grandchildren as their kids get older. I have never had such a desire. I mean, if there are grandkids, great. But I don't want my kids to have kids of their own just so I can have some grandkids to play with.
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But I don't want my kids to have kids of their own just so I can have some grandkids to play with.
Nor do I.
Grandchildren are exceedingly fun to spoil, yet I would have had no problem if all of my children had chose to be childless. I wasn't consulted, nor would I have had a preference if I were. I simply take advantage of the current situation and enjoy them because they are there.
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I don't have kids and I don't want them but if I did have kids I would full support my child's choice to not have children.
Personally, I'm just selfish which is the main driving factor of not having kids. We didn't have much growing up so as I got older and started getting jobs that pay well I really value the ability to do whatever I want when I want (within reason obviously) and at 36 I haven't gotten tired of that. I don't hate kids, I love my niece and nephew but I just don't have that drive to have my own. Plus I always have this nagging worry that I'll be a terrible father like mine was.
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But I don't want my kids to have kids of their own just so I can have some grandkids to play with.
Nor do I.
Grandchildren are exceedingly fun to spoil, yet I would have had no problem if all of my children had chose to be childless. I wasn't consulted, nor would I have had a preference if I were. I simply take advantage of the current situation and enjoy them because they are there.
I didn't mean to insinuate that you felt that way. But I know plenty of people who DO feel that way, and your comment reminded me of them. That's all I meant.
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Short answer: The fuck did you come from adult children who are now telling me, your supposed Dad something?
Long answer: I would ultimately just be supporting them in whatever decision they make, but in guidance and advice I would likely swing to "Good! I wish more people felt this way" simply because I think so much of our society and the pressures involved with that push towards having children, that a sane and strong voice on the other side is warranted so that people can actually come to a neutral decision, if that makes sense.
Worth noting that neither myself nor my sister want kids, and my mother is not thrilled with that.
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Fully support. Kids are expensive. In addition to eventually needing their own room, there's everything they need growing up. I can barely pay for what me, my wife and our pets need, and I don't even pay rent!
The world gets worse and more dangerous every year. Definitely not for bringing a new life into.
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Let me start by saying I don't have kids and I have told my parents I don't want kids.
So I chose option 1 because that's how I wish my own parents would treat me and in theory, I'd like to think if I had kids that I would respect their decision.
But sadly, my parents are somewhere around option 3/4. They are not happy about it and constantly try to change my mind or say things like it's not right and that I am letting my family name die to shame me for my decision. But funny enough, my mom usually turns it back around on herself "what have I done to raise you this way???" and some of that comes down to being in a family with 4 children, life was hectic as a child and for me, personally, I was always the left out child in the family. There may be some truth to the way I was raised made me not want to have kids. Seeing my parents stuggle with it. I mean, seeing my own friends life with kids does little to sway me to want to have kids either. IN the end, I don't blame my parents for my decision, it's just my personality and life choices don't make me see having children as something I want to do.
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Fully support. Kids are expensive. In addition to eventually needing their own room, there's everything they need growing up. I can barely pay for what me, my wife and our pets need, and I don't even pay rent!
The world gets worse and more dangerous every year. Definitely not for bringing a new life into.
Not to pivot this thread but do you have a source for this? I see this claim all the time and I personally disagree (Washington Post backs it up here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/). We have near instant dissemination of world wide news through various outlets which might make things appear worse than they really are. On a completely micro level when I was a kid (I'm 36 now) you could get nabbed by a stranger and my parents wouldn't notice for hours until I was supposed to be home. Now kids have phones, or in my nieces case have gps tracked watches, and there are cameras everywhere recording everything that isn't to mention the safer cars, better medicine etc.
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It's fairly easy to argue we've never been safer. But there are completely different threats now than there were 10 years ago or 59 for that matter.
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I purposely left the idea of "the world is not a great place to raise a child" out of my response because I think it's a fairly bogus reason. While I do get it though, like not so much of just violence, but social media and the pressure of life would make being a parent difficult. BUT I think if you are a committed parent, these shouldn't be issues with wanting to start a family. People have always and will continue (as far as I can tell) raise children in the current climate of the world. To me, that's not a good reason. But if one felt so strongly as that was their reason, so be it, that's still your call at the end of the day that I would respect even if I think it's not a great reason.
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It's fairly easy to argue we've never been safer. But there are completely different threats now than there were 10 years ago or 59 for that matter.
Such as global warming for example. We never could have imagined that we'd have to lock down to avoid a virus, and sure as hell we cannot imagine that we'll have to ration water. I'm not saying it will definitively happen, it's just that I think 99,9% of the "western world" sees rationing of water as something that happens only in poor third world countries, and they can't fathom that one day, soon, it could happen to us as well. Sure as hell when news of Sars broke in 2002-3 nobody thought "geez, if this would spread worldwide, we'd have to stop to go out and cancel all sporting events including the Olympic Games and rethink our way of living".
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But funny enough, my mom usually turns it back around on herself "what have I done to raise you this way???"
Yeah, my mother has done the same from time to time over the years and I have to just shake my head and chuckle. She once said to me, "I'm sorry I wasn't the mother you needed. I failed you." I laughed and told her, "Mom, do you realize you just called me a failure...or at least a disappointment? I disagree. Completely."
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But funny enough, my mom usually turns it back around on herself "what have I done to raise you this way???"
Yeah, my mother has done the same from time to time over the years and I have to just shake my head and chuckle. She once said to me, "I'm sorry I wasn't the mother you needed. I failed you." I laughed and told her, "Mom, do you realize you just called me a failure...or at least a disappointment? I disagree. Completely."
Ugh - that is such a passive aggressive way to handle issues. I recognize it from my own mother who was the queen at slinging guilt around to get what she wanted.
It took me so long to stop letting that shit bother me and get to the point of seeing it for what it was and laughing it off. One of the things I am most proud of in my own parenting is not using that kind of tactic with my own kids. I'm sure I fucked them up in other ways though. :D
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Well, Harmony, I've been fortunate to not ever have been subject to motivation by guilt. Even at a very young age. My mother knows this, but due to her...um, religious notions, she helplessly wishes for me to fit into a mold I can't even imagine. By every other metric I'm as successful, kind, and well adjusted as any parent could hope for. I don't really take any offense for her attitude. It's more amusing than anything.
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Well, Harmony, I've been fortunate to not ever have been subject to motivation by guilt. Even at a very young age. My mother knows this, but due to her...um, religious notions, she helplessly wishes for me to fit into a mold I can't even imagine. By every other metric I'm as successful, kind, and well adjusted as any parent could hope for. I don't really take any offense for her attitude. It's more amusing than anything.
Wow, this sounds a bit similar. I'll never be the perfect Christian boy my parents wanted me to be. I don't think my parents don't love me or anything like that, my parents are great, but there is a bit of a feeling of disappointment from them and a feeling I'll never be their favorite child. It's OK, I've long ago accepted that to be the case and I don't hold it against my parents for favoritism as they are just humans too. But the comment I used as an example is something that doesn't go unnoticed. And also relating to not wanting to have a child, the feeling of disappointment always comes out. The funny thing, my older sister, the one who my parents love the most, also doesn't want to have kids. But she rarely ever (or maybe it's just not in front of me) gets the same comments from my parents. It may tie into what my father guilts me about, passing on the family name. But I don't get why I'm guilted on that, I have a brother who is getting married soon. He's got a good chance to keep the family name going. I don't see it as my responsibility or my burden to bare.
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I wonder if there is some residual generational pressures at play here. I know when my great grandparents were making their families, large families were commonplace especially in farming communities. Mostly because the kids became cheap labor but also because life expectancy in childhood was pretty abysmal.
Certainly as generations have moved forward, this pressure to have very large families has eased a bit. But I think especially for some religions, it is still encouraged - Mormons, Catholics, Baptists. Maybe part of the parental pressure to 'carry on the family name' springs from some of those beliefs. It doesn't make it ok - but it just goes to show how ingrained these beliefs can become and how difficult breaking cycles can be.
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I wonder if there is some residual generational pressures at play here. I know when my great grandparents were making their families, large families were commonplace especially in farming communities. Mostly because the kids became cheap labor but also because life expectancy in childhood was pretty abysmal.
Certainly as generations have moved forward, this pressure to have very large families has eased a bit. But I think especially for some religions, it is still encouraged - Mormons, Catholics, Baptists. Maybe part of the parental pressure to 'carry on the family name' springs from some of those beliefs. It doesn't make it ok - but it just goes to show how ingrained these beliefs can become and how difficult breaking cycles can be.
It's definitely religion in my case, my parents are Christian and definitely believe the religion should be spread via offspring and of course word.
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I have two kids, 16 and 23. I don't think that they will get kids.
I will fully support their descision when they take it.
I am not sure I would have had kids if I was in child rearing age now.
The world does not need to be peopled and unfortunately my kids grow up in a totally different time than I.
When I grew up everything looked to get better. Today we have one crisis afer another. With climate crisis looming over everything.
So yeah.... I love my kids to death but feel really sorry for them as well
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Certainly as generations have moved forward, this pressure to have very large families has eased a bit. But I think especially for some religions, it is still encouraged - Mormons, Catholics, Baptists. Maybe part of the parental pressure to 'carry on the family name' springs from some of those beliefs. It doesn't make it ok - but it just goes to show how ingrained these beliefs can become and how difficult breaking cycles can be.
I think your overall point is right.
As far as Catholics, I was born and raised into a Roman Catholic family and attended 12 years of Catholic school. I haven't attended mass probably since my kids were baptized and haven't regularly attended in more than 30 years. We were never taught or pressured to have large families (although I and my two best friends growing up came from families of 5, 6 and 7, and I know a guy from high school who I think has 6-7 kids himself). What we WERE taught, however, was that any form of artificial birth control was a sin. My GUESS is that, by the time I was in school, most of my classmates (like myself) didn't buy into that and it's not really a thing anymore. But it very much was a thing for Boomers and Silents who were Roman Catholic (I believe other groups of Catholics took a more progressive stance earlier than the Romans). And, based on some people I know, it very much still is for Mormons.
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I have two kids, 16 and 23. I don't think that they will get kids.
I will fully support their descision when they take it.
I am not sure I would have had kids if I was in child rearing age now.
The world does not need to be peopled and unfortunately my kids grow up in a totally different time than I.
When I grew up everything looked to get better. Today we have one crisis afer another. With climate crisis looming over everything.
So yeah.... I love my kids to death but feel really sorry for them as well
I find this is pretty subjective though, and you can look at it the other way if you want. You could also make the argument that things have never been better, that everyday that goes by a new child is born who has a better chance to live a happy, healthy life then the child born one second before them.
After all, think back through history at some of the times when people continue to have children. You have some gruesome events like the bubonic plague and famines throughout Europe as well as war and genocide and people still decided to have children.
I am not trying to pick on you but I kind of hate that this line of thinking is what we are incentivized to do in the developed world, i.e., people not having children because they can't afford to or don't have the social or family support in place, but instead of attacking those issues we are told that we live in a singular moment of crisis by the media.
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I have two kids, 16 and 23. I don't think that they will get kids.
I will fully support their descision when they take it.
I am not sure I would have had kids if I was in child rearing age now.
The world does not need to be peopled and unfortunately my kids grow up in a totally different time than I.
When I grew up everything looked to get better. Today we have one crisis afer another. With climate crisis looming over everything.
So yeah.... I love my kids to death but feel really sorry for them as well
I find this is pretty subjective though, and you can look at it the other way if you want. You could also make the argument that things have never been better, that everyday that goes by a new child is born who has a better chance to live a happy, healthy life then the child born one second before them.
After all, think back through history at some of the times when people continue to have children. You have some gruesome events like the bubonic plague and famines throughout Europe as well as war and genocide and people still decided to have children.
I am not trying to pick on you but I kind of hate that this line of thinking is what we are incentivized to do in the developed world, i.e., people not having children because they can't afford to or don't have the social or family support in place, but instead of attacking those issues we are told that we live in a singular moment of crisis by the media.
I'm sorry but no....
My kids worry about overpopulation and climate change.
They feel that they have been delt a short straw.
You can look at it another way if you want to but youth, at least here in Sweden, have a pretty pesimistic view of the future.
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And.... no it's not media who tell ud there is a climate crisis going on.
It's the scientists of the world who do so.
We can also use our own minds and perceptions to see that we get more and more exteme weather.
Saying that it's a media cretion is akin to the ostrich puttng his head in the sand....
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And.... no it's not media who tell ud there is a climate crisis going on.
It's the scientists of the world who do so.
We can also use our own minds and perceptions to see that we get more and more exteme weather.
Saying that it's a media cretion is akin to the ostrich puttng his head in the sand....
Yeah and we can blame the rise of Industrialization which only a certain group of people created and started. There were other groups of people who tried their very best to warn and say that what was happening will have negative effects and consequences in the future. Look where we are now because that group of people ignored them and thought them uncivilized because they weren't in agreement with the progress of globalization.
But also, we humans have survived so much that it's laughable to think we won't survive any further detriments. Yes it's difficult, but also, we humans have always adapted to change.
This is why I find the excuse of society is hard and difficult and we are facing tough times to be quite laughable as well.
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I have two kids, 16 and 23. I don't think that they will get kids.
I will fully support their descision when they take it.
I am not sure I would have had kids if I was in child rearing age now.
The world does not need to be peopled and unfortunately my kids grow up in a totally different time than I.
When I grew up everything looked to get better. Today we have one crisis afer another. With climate crisis looming over everything.
So yeah.... I love my kids to death but feel really sorry for them as well
I find this is pretty subjective though, and you can look at it the other way if you want. You could also make the argument that things have never been better, that everyday that goes by a new child is born who has a better chance to live a happy, healthy life then the child born one second before them.
After all, think back through history at some of the times when people continue to have children. You have some gruesome events like the bubonic plague and famines throughout Europe as well as war and genocide and people still decided to have children.
I am not trying to pick on you but I kind of hate that this line of thinking is what we are incentivized to do in the developed world, i.e., people not having children because they can't afford to or don't have the social or family support in place, but instead of attacking those issues we are told that we live in a singular moment of crisis by the media.
The thing is we can't see what the actual future will be. It's all related to the fear of the unknown, human perception and assumption of what may be.
Scientists predict things, this doesn't mean it's true. There's a plausibility it may be true, but we humans won't know until it does happen. If you observe things, listen, and are aware of nature, you'll get a sense of where things could possibly end up. Such as, when humans developed things, these things poisoned the water, earth, and sky. Some humans were very aware that if we don't take care of the Earth, we will only destroy ourselves, such as creating things that do poison the water, land, and sky. A reason why some people never bothered or even thought to create such things.
This also plays into why I am saying that the perception of having children is entirely cultural based. This is a reason why some of your parents are adamant about children because that's what their cultural beliefs instill. This is another reason why Patrilineal based cultures such as China value boys more so than girls. Yet, Matrilineal based cultures value or praise the birth of a girl, more so than the boy, but both have their places within the culture.
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I have two kids, 16 and 23. I don't think that they will get kids.
I will fully support their descision when they take it.
I am not sure I would have had kids if I was in child rearing age now.
The world does not need to be peopled and unfortunately my kids grow up in a totally different time than I.
When I grew up everything looked to get better. Today we have one crisis afer another. With climate crisis looming over everything.
So yeah.... I love my kids to death but feel really sorry for them as well
I find this is pretty subjective though, and you can look at it the other way if you want. You could also make the argument that things have never been better, that everyday that goes by a new child is born who has a better chance to live a happy, healthy life then the child born one second before them.
After all, think back through history at some of the times when people continue to have children. You have some gruesome events like the bubonic plague and famines throughout Europe as well as war and genocide and people still decided to have children.
I am not trying to pick on you but I kind of hate that this line of thinking is what we are incentivized to do in the developed world, i.e., people not having children because they can't afford to or don't have the social or family support in place, but instead of attacking those issues we are told that we live in a singular moment of crisis by the media.
I'm sorry but no....
My kids worry about overpopulation and climate change.
They feel that they have been delt a short straw.
You can look at it another way if you want to but youth, at least here in Sweden, have a pretty pesimistic view of the future.
This is not science though. Sure, scientists agree that climate change is happening and that it will be catastrophic, but science does not tell us what the world population should be or how people will find a way to handle it. I understand being so scared of it that you do not want to face it, but whether you think it's worse than things men have faced before is pretty subjective, having less people around won't stop it from happening anymore than having more people around will.
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I have two kids, 16 and 23. I don't think that they will get kids.
I will fully support their descision when they take it.
I am not sure I would have had kids if I was in child rearing age now.
The world does not need to be peopled and unfortunately my kids grow up in a totally different time than I.
When I grew up everything looked to get better. Today we have one crisis afer another. With climate crisis looming over everything.
So yeah.... I love my kids to death but feel really sorry for them as well
I find this is pretty subjective though, and you can look at it the other way if you want. You could also make the argument that things have never been better, that everyday that goes by a new child is born who has a better chance to live a happy, healthy life then the child born one second before them.
After all, think back through history at some of the times when people continue to have children. You have some gruesome events like the bubonic plague and famines throughout Europe as well as war and genocide and people still decided to have children.
I am not trying to pick on you but I kind of hate that this line of thinking is what we are incentivized to do in the developed world, i.e., people not having children because they can't afford to or don't have the social or family support in place, but instead of attacking those issues we are told that we live in a singular moment of crisis by the media.
I'm with Skeever on this. This notion that the world is as bad as it's ever been is - and I say this with respect - personal bias creeping in. Life expectancies are expanding, medical care in general has never been better (that one person doesn't have access doesn't mean that as a whole it's not effective).
I am FAR better positioned to raise kids than my parents were, or their parents. I have access to schools and programs that weren't available even when I was a kid, let alone when my parents were kids.
Sure, climate change MIGHT be an issue (not saying it doesn't exist, saying the IMPACTS might be catastrophic for any one individual) but that's to be debated.
For every danger now, there is/was one for each previous generation that was a) far more likely to occur, and b) far more devastating in the impacts.
I don't have to worry about being mauled in my cave by a bear. I don't have to worry about dying because I got bit by a snake or coyote and the wound got infected. I don't have to worry about a TON of things that are immediate and high probability of both occurring and causing direct harm.
And even IF you were of the ilk to say "the world is a shithole and we shouldn't bring kids into it", wouldn't the logic be to BRING kids into it and teach them early and often that their lot in life is to help fix this shit?
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I have two kids, 16 and 23. I don't think that they will get kids.
I will fully support their descision when they take it.
I am not sure I would have had kids if I was in child rearing age now.
The world does not need to be peopled and unfortunately my kids grow up in a totally different time than I.
When I grew up everything looked to get better. Today we have one crisis afer another. With climate crisis looming over everything.
So yeah.... I love my kids to death but feel really sorry for them as well
I find this is pretty subjective though, and you can look at it the other way if you want. You could also make the argument that things have never been better, that everyday that goes by a new child is born who has a better chance to live a happy, healthy life then the child born one second before them.
After all, think back through history at some of the times when people continue to have children. You have some gruesome events like the bubonic plague and famines throughout Europe as well as war and genocide and people still decided to have children.
I am not trying to pick on you but I kind of hate that this line of thinking is what we are incentivized to do in the developed world, i.e., people not having children because they can't afford to or don't have the social or family support in place, but instead of attacking those issues we are told that we live in a singular moment of crisis by the media.
I'm with Skeever on this. This notion that the world is as bad as it's ever been is - and I say this with respect - personal bias creeping in. Life expectancies are expanding, medical care in general has never been better (that one person doesn't have access doesn't mean that as a whole it's not effective).
I am FAR better positioned to raise kids than my parents were, or their parents. I have access to schools and programs that weren't available even when I was a kid, let alone when my parents were kids.
Sure, climate change MIGHT be an issue (not saying it doesn't exist, saying the IMPACTS might be catastrophic for any one individual) but that's to be debated.
For every danger now, there is/was one for each previous generation that was a) far more likely to occur, and b) far more devastating in the impacts.
I don't have to worry about being mauled in my cave by a bear. I don't have to worry about dying because I got bit by a snake or coyote and the wound got infected. I don't have to worry about a TON of things that are immediate and high probability of both occurring and causing direct harm.
And even IF you were of the ilk to say "the world is a shithole and we shouldn't bring kids into it", wouldn't the logic be to BRING kids into it and teach them early and often that their lot in life is to help fix this shit?
Precisely, if the current world is shit, why not teach your children to change it around for the better?
Generational Trauma runs rampant in a lot of families and it's unfortunate when it continues. There are also children who grow up into adults who are trying their very best to break that cycle of generational trauma. This is not an easy thing to do, it's dirty, it's ugly, and there ís nothing pretty about sifting through the dirt and trash to help you break that chain. But it can be done.
The problems and situations of the past were my parents and grandparents worry. Nothing can change what happened in the past. What we humans can change and do have an effect on is the future. My worry is the now, how can what I do in the now potentially help and benefit the future of not only my children, but for the benefit of the entire ecology of the world.
My children, and future generations, should learn from the mistakes I have made and improve or do try something else, if what I did was revealed to not have been beneficial at all. Such as how we are now currently seeing how what was considered beneficial for humanity is the cause for the detriment of humanity. We are observing, in the now, what decisions and choices, which were likely for the betterment of the future, are in reality not beneificial, but are in fact detrimental for the betterment of the humanities future.
It's not the children's fault for what they're born into.
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verpopulation and climate change.
They feel that they have been delt a short straw.
You can look at it another way if you want to but youth, at least here in Sweden, have a pretty pesimistic view of the future.
As much as you say in your next post it's not media, I can't help but think that in a country as unpopulated as Sweden is worried about over population that it is anything else but media frenzy forming that opinion. But this may be going too much into PR territory though. I do think overpopulation is something to think about, but the concerns for it, IMO, are very localized to certain areas like India for example. I'm not even too worried about China because it seems like their population is about to take a huge hit in the coming decades from their old 1 child policy.
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Let me start by saying I don't have kids and I have told my parents I don't want kids.
So I chose option 1 because that's how I wish my own parents would treat me and in theory, I'd like to think if I had kids that I would respect their decision.
But sadly, my parents are somewhere around option 3/4. They are not happy about it and constantly try to change my mind or say things like it's not right and that I am letting my family name die to shame me for my decision. But funny enough, my mom usually turns it back around on herself "what have I done to raise you this way???" and some of that comes down to being in a family with 4 children, life was hectic as a child and for me, personally, I was always the left out child in the family. There may be some truth to the way I was raised made me not want to have kids. Seeing my parents stuggle with it. I mean, seeing my own friends life with kids does little to sway me to want to have kids either. IN the end, I don't blame my parents for my decision, it's just my personality and life choices don't make me see having children as something I want to do.
The bolded is me as well. The rest of your post is fortunately not me. My parents and I didn't have a deep discussion about it; my dad kind of shrugged and thought it was a little unfortunate. but there's been 0 guilting or really any comments about it at all. My dad is great with my cousin's kids and would be a great grandparent, so I'm sure he's a little disappointed about it, or maybe even a lot disappointed, but to his credit it's never been an issue at all.
Well, Harmony, I've been fortunate to not ever have been subject to motivation by guilt. Even at a very young age. My mother knows this, but due to her...um, religious notions, she helplessly wishes for me to fit into a mold I can't even imagine. By every other metric I'm as successful, kind, and well adjusted as any parent could hope for. I don't really take any offense for her attitude. It's more amusing than anything.
Wow, this sounds a bit similar. I'll never be the perfect Christian boy my parents wanted me to be. I don't think my parents don't love me or anything like that, my parents are great, but there is a bit of a feeling of disappointment from them and a feeling I'll never be their favorite child. It's OK, I've long ago accepted that to be the case and I don't hold it against my parents for favoritism as they are just humans too. But the comment I used as an example is something that doesn't go unnoticed. And also relating to not wanting to have a child, the feeling of disappointment always comes out. The funny thing, my older sister, the one who my parents love the most, also doesn't want to have kids. But she rarely ever (or maybe it's just not in front of me) gets the same comments from my parents. It may tie into what my father guilts me about, passing on the family name. But I don't get why I'm guilted on that, I have a brother who is getting married soon. He's got a good chance to keep the family name going. I don't see it as my responsibility or my burden to bare.
Your sister could, if she ever does have children, decide to keep her own name and pass it down that way. It's happening a little more often now. But continuing the family name shouldn't really anyone's responsibility, so I'm with you on that.
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Wow, this sounds a bit similar. I'll never be the perfect Christian boy my parents wanted me to be. I don't think my parents don't love me or anything like that, my parents are great, but there is a bit of a feeling of disappointment from them and a feeling I'll never be their favorite child.
So much of this, and how you described your childhood. I'm the youngest of four, so I grew up surrounded by chaos and often being the left out one, but also having all these crazy expectations thrown on me because I was a girl. I was told I was going to get married and have kids from a very young age, not ever given the option. So when I started to tell my mom I didn't think I wanted that stuff it was always "you'll change your mind someday." But not because she thought it was an experience I would enjoy, because she felt entitled to grandkids and expected me to live the same life as her. Fortunately two of my brothers ended up having kids, but there was still this pressure on me as the only girl for a long time. It took me literally having my fallopian tubes removed for her to stop saying that shit. But she still occasionally says stuff about how I would be a good mom (just like she still sometimes says one day I'll believe in Jesus again).
What drives me crazy is that how I feel and what I want don't seem to matter at all to her. Because some parents treat their kids like property or extensions of themselves who aren't supposed to have their own personalities, and this has led me to feeling very alienated from my family for a very long time.
So moral of the story for the actual parents out there is to have whatever feelings you want, but if you push back on your kids for stuff like this and don't actually respect who they are, you are just going to push them away. Don't make it all about you, because it isn't.
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Not to pivot this thread but do you have a source for this? I see this claim all the time and I personally disagree (Washington Post backs it up here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/). We have near instant dissemination of world wide news through various outlets which might make things appear worse than they really are. On a completely micro level when I was a kid (I'm 36 now) you could get nabbed by a stranger and my parents wouldn't notice for hours until I was supposed to be home. Now kids have phones, or in my nieces case have gps tracked watches, and there are cameras everywhere recording everything that isn't to mention the safer cars, better medicine etc.
It's as simple as this: you never know when your kid's school, your local store, your business, your restaurant, your concert is going to get shot up next. People are also getting randomly attacked and sometimes killed for no reason. I'm not saying to live in fear, but to say this world has never been safer is laughable.
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Not to pivot this thread but do you have a source for this? I see this claim all the time and I personally disagree (Washington Post backs it up here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/). We have near instant dissemination of world wide news through various outlets which might make things appear worse than they really are. On a completely micro level when I was a kid (I'm 36 now) you could get nabbed by a stranger and my parents wouldn't notice for hours until I was supposed to be home. Now kids have phones, or in my nieces case have gps tracked watches, and there are cameras everywhere recording everything that isn't to mention the safer cars, better medicine etc.
It's as simple as this: you never know when your kid's school, your local store, your business, your restaurant, your concert is going to get shot up next. People are also getting randomly attacked and sometimes killed for no reason. I'm not saying to live in fear, but to say this world has never been safer is laughable.
Well, laugh away (I'm kidding, not being dismissive), because you HEAR about these events all the time, but the actual numbers are not that great. 40-some odd thousand PEOPLE - not kids, but of all ages - die of gunshots each year in the US. Over 55% of them are suicides. So we're down to about 20,000 that aren't self-inflicted. The majority of those are NOT kids, but people OF ALL AGES and most of them are crime related. In 1900, the leading causes of death were all related to health (TB, diarhhea, etc.) and something like 40% of those were kids under the age of 5. The chances that a newborn survives childhood was about 50% in 1900, and now - GLOBALLY - it's over 96%. (https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past)
It isn't even close that it's overall safer to be a kid today than 100 years ago. Perhaps more threats (even that is arguable), but less likely for them to be fatal.
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Not to pivot this thread but do you have a source for this? I see this claim all the time and I personally disagree (Washington Post backs it up here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/). We have near instant dissemination of world wide news through various outlets which might make things appear worse than they really are. On a completely micro level when I was a kid (I'm 36 now) you could get nabbed by a stranger and my parents wouldn't notice for hours until I was supposed to be home. Now kids have phones, or in my nieces case have gps tracked watches, and there are cameras everywhere recording everything that isn't to mention the safer cars, better medicine etc.
It's as simple as this: you never know when your kid's school, your local store, your business, your restaurant, your concert is going to get shot up next. People are also getting randomly attacked and sometimes killed for no reason. I'm not saying to live in fear, but to say this world has never been safer is laughable.
Well, laugh away (I'm kidding, not being dismissive), because you HEAR about these events all the time, but the actual numbers are not that great. 40-some odd thousand PEOPLE - not kids, but of all ages - die of gunshots each year in the US. Over 55% of them are suicides. So we're down to about 20,000 that aren't self-inflicted. The majority of those are NOT kids, but people OF ALL AGES and most of them are crime related. In 1900, the leading causes of death were all related to health (TB, diarhhea, etc.) and something like 40% of those were kids under the age of 5. The chances that a newborn survives childhood was about 50% in 1900, and now - GLOBALLY - it's over 96%. (https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past)
It isn't even close that it's overall safer to be a kid today than 100 years ago. Perhaps more threats (even that is arguable), but less likely for them to be fatal.
You're bringing up reasons why this is a great time to be alive. Some I get and some don't. I'm not sure about your metrics, though. They might be a little too concrete for my tastes. There needs to be some personal reflection in there. Perhaps another thing to consider is whether or not it's worth being alive. People might be safer, and they might live longer, but are they happier or depressed? Will they be optimistic or full of dread? Americans are typically not a happy lot, either compared to the rest of the world or Americans of the past, and we're damn sure pessimistic about the way things are going and that's only getting worse. People might have more personal wealth, adding to their ability to care for a child, but they might not, or might see their wealth dwindling with no sign of restoration. Moreover, watching that happen they might, quite reasonably, fear that their child will see his potential for wealth, of vital importance in capitalist America, diminish. When choosing if this is the right time to drop a new person into the world I'd suggest that wealth, safety, and length of life are no more or less important than the quality of that life it might endure, and that's something we each have to evaluate for ourselves.
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So when I started to tell my mom I didn't think I wanted that stuff it was always "you'll change your mind someday."
Yup, I still get that even as I approach 40 even when nothing of my fundamental feelings on the matter have changed. ??? I believe you are italian? That would put us pretty similar of growing up in an italian family with 3 other siblings in NJ.
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I really think it has to do with consumerist culture, more than anything.
Every prior generation had the fear of God put in them that, with small exception, committing to godly monogamy and child-rearing was the correct thing to do, even before career and vocational callings.
I'm not saying we've got to run back to religion. But clearly, our new religion of consumerism doesn't really care about kids. As an acolyte of late stage capitalism, your job is to prioritize a career, so you can make money so that you can have a nicer life, and thus greater cultivate your identity by way of consumption choices and kids, never a good financial decision, just get in the way of that.
I'm thinking that, unless we start coming up with some humanistic, broadly accepted reasons why people should have kids, we're just going to continue in this direction. Some real energy needs to be put into discerning why family life is important for the younger generations, and we're never going to see that from our corporate overlords.
I do think we'll see some really wild things if the demographic collapse of the developed world is a serious as some things make it sound. I've got this, perhaps wacky, vision of the next Greta Thunberg, 30 years from now, urging women to become teen moms on the TOK to help abate the human population crisis. I know, I need to lay off the sauce.
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Maybe the line has to be made between the US and the world. Most of the mass shootings are in the US, so maybe the world is safer, but the US is not?
And that Washington Post article is from 2015, there has been a lot more violence since then.
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Maybe the line has to be made between the US and the world. Most of the mass shootings are in the US, so maybe the world is safer, but the US is not?
And that Washington Post article is from 2015, there has been a lot more violence since then.
As far as the US goes, I think there's a way to look at the problem relatively.
A couple hundred active shooter deaths per year is the story of this generation and it's something the rest of the developed world may not have to deal with as often.
But there are also things that make this country safer than other places in the world, including the past version of itself.
For example, we drafted for Vietnam in the 70s and like 50k Americans wound up getting killed there. I'd take my chances in the decade of active shooters over the decade of draft eligibility. This is one way being a young person in America today is way better than being a teenager in America a generation back.
Another example - adolescent fatality due to sickness. You're far less likely to have a child die of a respatory infection in America than most other places in the world.
If you were a homunculi floating around getting to pick where you were born, perhaps you would not chose to be born in the US, but I'm not sure the gun deaths really would count as much as you might think when all the different variables are on the table. There is certainly a spiritual toll that is taken and hard to quantify by having to see these stories in the news every day. But it's not necessarily one that has an impact on life expectancy, and the risk it happens to you here in the states is still far less than the risk you could have your life cut short by something else that's a problem somewhere else in the world.
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I really think it has to do with consumerist culture, more than anything.
Every prior generation had the fear of God put in them that, with small exception, committing to godly monogamy and child-rearing was the correct thing to do, even before career and vocational callings.
I'm not saying we've got to run back to religion. But clearly, our new religion of consumerism doesn't really care about kids. As an acolyte of late stage capitalism, your job is to prioritize a career, so you can make money so that you can have a nicer life, and thus greater cultivate your identity by way of consumption choices and kids, never a good financial decision, just get in the way of that.
I'm thinking that, unless we start coming up with some humanistic, broadly accepted reasons why people should have kids, we're just going to continue in this direction. Some real energy needs to be put into discerning why family life is important for the younger generations, and we're never going to see that from our corporate overlords.
I do think we'll see some really wild things if the demographic collapse of the developed world is a serious as some things make it sound. I've got this, perhaps wacky, vision of the next Greta Thunberg, 30 years from now, urging women to become teen moms on the TOK to help abate the human population crisis. I know, I need to lay off the sauce.
This is a good post, and I'm not trying to give you grief about it. Also, I'm really not as misanthropic as I often come across. I do ask questions, though, and one of them has to be whether or not humanity is actually worth propagating if this is what we've amounted to? We are not Gene Roddenberry's future humans, nor are we destined to be. From where I stand we're the same backwards savages we used to be with greater knowledge and nicer toys, which we are not using for the greater good. There are certainly good people out there, but as often as not they seem to be the ones getting nailed to trees, sometimes literally. They are not the future.
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No way I would personally want to bring another kid into this world, which is why I stand by the fact that I don't care what my kids do. After seeing what my kids went through in school and seeing what is happening to school boards across the country, no way. All this book banning and all these policies that the party of 'limited government' keep putting in all over, I can't imagine being a parent let alone a child in the current climate. Just find the story on that school board in Colorado that has completely lost the plot. Couple all of that with cyber-bullying and whatever new methods they keep coming up with to bully. We're just a broken society.
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I really think it has to do with consumerist culture, more than anything.
Every prior generation had the fear of God put in them that, with small exception, committing to godly monogamy and child-rearing was the correct thing to do, even before career and vocational callings.
I'm not saying we've got to run back to religion. But clearly, our new religion of consumerism doesn't really care about kids. As an acolyte of late stage capitalism, your job is to prioritize a career, so you can make money so that you can have a nicer life, and thus greater cultivate your identity by way of consumption choices and kids, never a good financial decision, just get in the way of that.
I'm thinking that, unless we start coming up with some humanistic, broadly accepted reasons why people should have kids, we're just going to continue in this direction. Some real energy needs to be put into discerning why family life is important for the younger generations, and we're never going to see that from our corporate overlords.
I do think we'll see some really wild things if the demographic collapse of the developed world is a serious as some things make it sound. I've got this, perhaps wacky, vision of the next Greta Thunberg, 30 years from now, urging women to become teen moms on the TOK to help abate the human population crisis. I know, I need to lay off the sauce.
On general terms I'm not diasgreeing with you, but since on social media you can't avoid even if you want to gossip celebrities, you see rich and famous people having children all the time. So when money suddenly is not an issue, people DO still have kids.
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I really think it has to do with consumerist culture, more than anything.
Every prior generation had the fear of God put in them that, with small exception, committing to godly monogamy and child-rearing was the correct thing to do, even before career and vocational callings.
I'm not saying we've got to run back to religion. But clearly, our new religion of consumerism doesn't really care about kids. As an acolyte of late stage capitalism, your job is to prioritize a career, so you can make money so that you can have a nicer life, and thus greater cultivate your identity by way of consumption choices and kids, never a good financial decision, just get in the way of that.
I'm thinking that, unless we start coming up with some humanistic, broadly accepted reasons why people should have kids, we're just going to continue in this direction. Some real energy needs to be put into discerning why family life is important for the younger generations, and we're never going to see that from our corporate overlords.
I do think we'll see some really wild things if the demographic collapse of the developed world is a serious as some things make it sound. I've got this, perhaps wacky, vision of the next Greta Thunberg, 30 years from now, urging women to become teen moms on the TOK to help abate the human population crisis. I know, I need to lay off the sauce.
This is a good post, and I'm not trying to give you grief about it. Also, I'm really not as misanthropic as I often come across. I do ask questions, though, and one of them has to be whether or not humanity is actually worth propagating if this is what we've amounted to? We are not Gene Roddenberry's future humans, nor are we destined to be. From where I stand we're the same backwards savages we used to be with greater knowledge and nicer toys, which we are not using for the greater good. There are certainly good people out there, but as often as not they seem to be the ones getting nailed to trees, sometimes literally. They are not the future.
Yeah, these are good points, and I only have a few ideas for a response.
First one is just a statistical point. Yes. Most of us suck, and always have. More of us increases the chances that one of our luminaries comes along to help launch us closer to enlightenment.
Second is the idea in the classical philosophical sense of what makes a man good as opposed to a savage. And for some like Confucious and Aristotle, the conclusion on what man's best and most dignified life entails hits close to family life. I haven't read enough about this to say anything more about it.
Third idea is that, yes we suck, but whether it's worth being here is kinda subjective. For example, you may think that it sucks, but if you still think it's worth being here, chances are the next guy will too. I personally figure that life's worth living beyond whenever my familial duties are done for at least as long as I could imagine myself getting out to a show and having a pint in my hand. We, collectively, don't get to make the call when the party ends.
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Not to pivot this thread but do you have a source for this? I see this claim all the time and I personally disagree (Washington Post backs it up here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres-never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/). We have near instant dissemination of world wide news through various outlets which might make things appear worse than they really are. On a completely micro level when I was a kid (I'm 36 now) you could get nabbed by a stranger and my parents wouldn't notice for hours until I was supposed to be home. Now kids have phones, or in my nieces case have gps tracked watches, and there are cameras everywhere recording everything that isn't to mention the safer cars, better medicine etc.
It's as simple as this: you never know when your kid's school, your local store, your business, your restaurant, your concert is going to get shot up next. People are also getting randomly attacked and sometimes killed for no reason. I'm not saying to live in fear, but to say this world has never been safer is laughable.
Well, laugh away (I'm kidding, not being dismissive), because you HEAR about these events all the time, but the actual numbers are not that great. 40-some odd thousand PEOPLE - not kids, but of all ages - die of gunshots each year in the US. Over 55% of them are suicides. So we're down to about 20,000 that aren't self-inflicted. The majority of those are NOT kids, but people OF ALL AGES and most of them are crime related. In 1900, the leading causes of death were all related to health (TB, diarhhea, etc.) and something like 40% of those were kids under the age of 5. The chances that a newborn survives childhood was about 50% in 1900, and now - GLOBALLY - it's over 96%. (https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past)
It isn't even close that it's overall safer to be a kid today than 100 years ago. Perhaps more threats (even that is arguable), but less likely for them to be fatal.
You're bringing up reasons why this is a great time to be alive. Some I get and some don't. I'm not sure about your metrics, though. They might be a little too concrete for my tastes. There needs to be some personal reflection in there. Perhaps another thing to consider is whether or not it's worth being alive. People might be safer, and they might live longer, but are they happier or depressed? Will they be optimistic or full of dread? Americans are typically not a happy lot, either compared to the rest of the world or Americans of the past, and we're damn sure pessimistic about the way things are going and that's only getting worse. People might have more personal wealth, adding to their ability to care for a child, but they might not, or might see their wealth dwindling with no sign of restoration. Moreover, watching that happen they might, quite reasonably, fear that their child will see his potential for wealth, of vital importance in capitalist America, diminish. When choosing if this is the right time to drop a new person into the world I'd suggest that wealth, safety, and length of life are no more or less important than the quality of that life it might endure, and that's something we each have to evaluate for ourselves.
I don't argue with any of those, really, but I'm sort of sticking to things that are objective on purpose. I'm not always in subjective lock-step with everyone on the forum, and I don't want this to turn into the "life" version of the Lars Ulrich conversation. HAHA. I don't really share the "pessimism" and "depression" of America today. You know I've written a lot about that; I don't think it's as cut and dry as "CAPITALISM!", though that's a part of it. I think we're too big, frankly. But aside from that, for me, I AM glad to be alive. I have EVERY SONG I OWN on a devise the size of a pack of cigarettes. I have a car that will go 100 miles an hour and you won't even pause your conversation. I have a device where I can talk with you - and the other fine folks on this forum - on a daily, hourly, maybe even a minutely (is that a word?) basis and I'm sitting at my kitchen table in my underwear (more, or less :)). I have - and many other people do too, whether they realize it or not - access to someone who has over 8 or more years of high level experience to talk and walk me through my depression and pessimism if I'm feeling it. When my parents were declining, I could go to the airport, and in four hours, I was sitting in a car outside their assisted living facility. My cousin has MS; she is receiving a sort of gene therapy in an effort to live a more comfortable life; even just 20 years ago, she would have been essentially resigned to a wheelchair and crutches.
The new... I think it's Xfinity, commercial ends with a young man, I'd guess 20-ish, sitting on the stairs watching his family and saying "What a time to be alive." And I think it's right.
My dad - may he rest in peace - was the smartest person I know. And increasingly, for the last five or so years of his life, the pace of advancement was so great that it became not a matter of "being informed", but actually CONCEPTUALLY he couldn't always get his arms around what the world - both the people and the technology - could do. Things that my 15 year old takes for granted, at times my dad couldn't even CONCEPTUALIZE.
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Maybe the line has to be made between the US and the world. Most of the mass shootings are in the US, so maybe the world is safer, but the US is not?
And that Washington Post article is from 2015, there has been a lot more violence since then.
But the NUMBERS haven't changed materially, at least in terms of total numbers increasing; they have DECREASED drastically. On what basis are you saying we're not SAFER? Maybe, as El Barto suggests, less HAPPY, certainly more FEARFUL, but those are not the same thing. Even if you're right, and kids are twice - or even three times, pick a number! (though the reality is: there were only about 1,000 more fire-arm homicides in 2020 (19,384) (https://efsgv.org/wp-content/uploads/Overview-of-U.S.-Gun-Deaths_-2020.pdf) than there was in 1993 (18,253) (https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf)) - more likely to be SHOT, it's still not that big a number compared to all the other buckets that have gone down drastically. No one wants to hear it, but PART of the reason that the anti-gun lobby can claim "more kids died from a gun than anything else" is because they're NOT dying as much from anything else. (Bear in mind, too, that COVID HAS contributed to a spike in gun deaths, so while we can't assume, it's not clear yet whether numbers will return to pre-COVID levels over time).
It's hard to parse, because the categories are all sort of intertwined, but in 1991, a total of 22,145 kids died of accidents and homicides (leading cause, motorvehicle accidents, about 9,200 total) (https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf); in 2020, about 3836 kids died of the same causes (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/child-health.htm). Think about that: those categories presumably include firearm deaths. EVEN WITH the supposed (and percepted) increase in firearm deaths (will remind again that most of those stats include SUICIDES, which have to be parsed out to find harm to innocent bystanders) the rest of the causes have decreased so dramatically that the entire categories are a fraction of what they were 30 years prior (the vast bulk are motor vehicle deaths).
Read a book called "How Risky Is It?" or something close to that, by Dave Ropeik (a Harvard professor/researcher). Humans have historically SUCKED at the assessment and quantification of risk, and the internet age - with the selective dissemination of information - has only exacerbated that problem.
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Sure there are things that are better today than before although for how long is another question.
That the potable water around the globe has reduced significantly makes at least me a bit worried.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/18/world/disappearing-lakes-reservoirs-water-climate-intl/index.html
Or take the glaciers in the Himalayas that are the source of drinkig water for billions of people all arond them. They are shrinkig significantly.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/himalayas-glaciers-climate-change
What will happen in the future when millions or even billion people have to migrate because their water sources have dried up?
This is just one of the huge problems exacerbated by overpopulation and our consumerist life style.
Having a car or flying in an airplane is nice yes.... but for how long can we go on living like we had 4 or 5 mother earths to sustain us?
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No way I would personally want to bring another kid into this world, which is why I stand by the fact that I don't care what my kids do. After seeing what my kids went through in school and seeing what is happening to school boards across the country, no way. All this book banning and all these policies that the party of 'limited government' keep putting in all over, I can't imagine being a parent let alone a child in the current climate. Just find the story on that school board in Colorado that has completely lost the plot. Couple all of that with cyber-bullying and whatever new methods they keep coming up with to bully. We're just a broken society.
Well, this is something that we haven't talked about. It is UNDOUBTEDLY safer for kids, in terms of dying, today, in the US, regardless of any perception. It's not even close. BUT: to El Barto's point, there are other factors and I think the Professor notes at least one of them. Kids were just as cruel back when I was in school (I was 10 in 1977, and 15 in 1982) and there was bullying, but it was... I don't know what the word is, "personal"? Someone calls me "short", and the only people that know or hear are those in the immediate vicinity. Someone calls a girl "fat" and same, or maybe it spreads by word of mouth to others in the school. Someone in my family had an experience with bullying in her senior year of high school, and it was the UNIVERSE, because it was in part on Twitter and Snapgram or whatever. The police got involved, and in the conversation she was asked if there were any photos floating around, and they put her in room - with her mom - to look at what is actually a WEBSITE that collects nudes of school kids (obviously, mostly girls) divided by school/town/state. Are you fucking kidding me? Some perv can Tor or whatever his way to an FTP site and search by towns for stolen and hacked nudes of high school and middle school kids? I can't even get my arms around what that's doing to the collective psyche on both sides of the matter. All I had to deal with is a kid bigger than me puffing his chest out on the playground and potentially knocking my dick in the dirt.
I still stand by my point that it's on the whole better, but I do agree that the traditional metrics and standards have to be re-evaluated or at least re-calibrated.
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I really think it has to do with consumerist culture, more than anything.
Every prior generation had the fear of God put in them that, with small exception, committing to godly monogamy and child-rearing was the correct thing to do, even before career and vocational callings.
I'm not saying we've got to run back to religion. But clearly, our new religion of consumerism doesn't really care about kids. As an acolyte of late stage capitalism, your job is to prioritize a career, so you can make money so that you can have a nicer life, and thus greater cultivate your identity by way of consumption choices and kids, never a good financial decision, just get in the way of that.
I'm thinking that, unless we start coming up with some humanistic, broadly accepted reasons why people should have kids, we're just going to continue in this direction. Some real energy needs to be put into discerning why family life is important for the younger generations, and we're never going to see that from our corporate overlords.
I do think we'll see some really wild things if the demographic collapse of the developed world is a serious as some things make it sound. I've got this, perhaps wacky, vision of the next Greta Thunberg, 30 years from now, urging women to become teen moms on the TOK to help abate the human population crisis. I know, I need to lay off the sauce.
This is a good post, and I'm not trying to give you grief about it. Also, I'm really not as misanthropic as I often come across. I do ask questions, though, and one of them has to be whether or not humanity is actually worth propagating if this is what we've amounted to? We are not Gene Roddenberry's future humans, nor are we destined to be. From where I stand we're the same backwards savages we used to be with greater knowledge and nicer toys, which we are not using for the greater good. There are certainly good people out there, but as often as not they seem to be the ones getting nailed to trees, sometimes literally. They are not the future.
Yeah, these are good points, and I only have a few ideas for a response.
First one is just a statistical point. Yes. Most of us suck, and always have. More of us increases the chances that one of our luminaries comes along to help launch us closer to enlightenment.
Second is the idea in the classical philosophical sense of what makes a man good as opposed to a savage. And for some like Confucious and Aristotle, the conclusion on what man's best and most dignified life entails hits close to family life. I haven't read enough about this to say anything more about it.
Third idea is that, yes we suck, but whether it's worth being here is kinda subjective. For example, you may think that it sucks, but if you still think it's worth being here, chances are the next guy will too. I personally figure that life's worth living beyond whenever my familial duties are done for at least as long as I could imagine myself getting out to a show and having a pint in my hand. We, collectively, don't get to make the call when the party ends.
Ahh...The good ol' days when my people were called Savages because we were considered "primitive" by the standards of that culture.
Look, if I wasn't happy with life, I would've offed myself already. But I am not unhappy with my life, it could be better, but also, I am content with where I am at right now. I also can do what I could to better myself and this starts with me acting upon those beneficial thoughts and actions. I can be the change I want to be, or I can mope and continue to wither away as a hopeless human being. Yes, there are problems with the world, but there always has been problems that humans have faced since human creation.
There has never been a time when humans were as connected to each other as today. We humans are able to connect with another human from across the world, and gain insight into their lifestyle and way of life by not having to travel. We humans are able to observe the differences in our human lifestyles and how every culture does not perceive life the same way. Remember, the Christian/Catholic/Bible culture is just one perception for how humans perceive the world. There are many other cultures and perceptions that are vastly ignored when we talk about philosophy, it intrigues me how people don't realize that there are other perceptions to consider when we talk about life.
The perception of children is entirely cultural. How the children are treated and how they are raised is also based on culture. Catholic Children are raised based upon those Catholic cultural values, traditions, beliefs, and morals. My native cultures also view children differently. For us, since our entire culture is Matrilineal, we were more excited and grateful when we had a girl because our clans are based around the mother, and the girls/women are how we continue these clan lines. Now that we have the integration of this "western culture", this entire perception of our culture has changed. Most people today perceive life based around those "western culture" ideologies more so than our own traditional cultural perspectives.
I do agree with you Skeever, it's the Consumerist/Capitalist culture which does have an effect on how humans perceive life. How humans perceive life and the world has entirely changed. The entire world is based on money. Without money, you can't enjoy life. Money does mean happiness, due to this happiness involving the many things that make us humans happy. We need money for shelter, money for food, money for water, and even money for air. All these things were once freely available to us all. All these things were also well taken care of because it's a valuable resource that I place more value in than minerals, such as Gold/Silver.
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So when I started to tell my mom I didn't think I wanted that stuff it was always "you'll change your mind someday."
Yup, I still get that even as I approach 40 even when nothing of my fundamental feelings on the matter have changed. ??? I believe you are italian? That would put us pretty similar of growing up in an italian family with 3 other siblings in NJ.
Haha yup exactly, Italians expect their kids to be Catholic babymaking machines
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So when I started to tell my mom I didn't think I wanted that stuff it was always "you'll change your mind someday."
Yup, I still get that even as I approach 40 even when nothing of my fundamental feelings on the matter have changed. ??? I believe you are italian? That would put us pretty similar of growing up in an italian family with 3 other siblings in NJ.
Haha yup exactly, Italians expect their kids to be Catholic babymaking machines
And to be fair, you ARE a Catholic baby making machine.
Your babies just happen to be more akin to the Golgothan.
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I chose "Good! I wish more people felt this way!" Not everyone should breed.
I do not have kids (because I didn't & still don't want any) but I have kids. The Wife came prepackaged with two. If they didn't want kids I'd be more than fine with that. Anyway one already had a kid and even though they were nowhere near financially stable or in a good relationship, I did not discourage them from hatching The Child. Thus Herrick became Grandpa Herrick at the age of 37.