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.