My father would beg to differ. Some of the things I’ve heard: “who’s going to take care of you when you’re old”, “the undesirable immigrants with 5+ children will take over and ruin Europe”. He also told me I was being selfish when I was barely 18 for stating I didn’t want to have children because carrying a child for 9 months and childbirth terrify me. That shit still terrifies me to this day, on top of all the other reasons why I still don’t want to have children.
Also, according to him the feelings a parent has for their child are “unexplainable”. That must be why my mom and and his mom were more a part of my childhood than he was!
What’s wrong with being selfish? I didn’t want kids, full-time kids are annoying and a huge responsibility. If someone doesn’t desire children, it’s very much ok to dedicate the energy and resources of raising several kids to themselves.
People are selfish, reproducing doesn’t exempt you from being selfish, people can have kids for selfish reasons too.
I admit sometimes I’ve thought it would have been cool to raise a human from zero, trying to make them a good person, and be a demigod to them on their first years because they didn’t know better; but I still think the world needs less people, not more. Since the 70s we were warned about overpopulation and the environment, and we just added another billion people anyway.
Finances aside, it’s still not selfish.
Having a kid can be selfish.
I argue that both are selfish decisions, but having a kid eventually drags someone else into that didn’t consent.
I wrote a blog post about it after I got a vasectomy. I’m not an anti-natalist but I think its a point to consider.
https://thinkstoomuch.net/post/selfishsnips/
My father would beg to differ. Some of the things I’ve heard: “who’s going to take care of you when you’re old”, “the
undesirableimmigrants with 5+ children will take overand ruin Europe”. He also told me I was being selfish when I was barely 18 for stating I didn’t want to have children because carrying a child for 9 months and childbirth terrify me. That shit still terrifies me to this day, on top of all the other reasons why I still don’t want to have children.Also, according to him the feelings a parent has for their child are “unexplainable”. That must be why my mom and and his mom were more a part of my childhood than he was!
What’s wrong with being selfish? I didn’t want kids, full-time kids are annoying and a huge responsibility. If someone doesn’t desire children, it’s very much ok to dedicate the energy and resources of raising several kids to themselves.
People are selfish, reproducing doesn’t exempt you from being selfish, people can have kids for selfish reasons too.
I admit sometimes I’ve thought it would have been cool to raise a human from zero, trying to make them a good person, and be a demigod to them on their first years because they didn’t know better; but I still think the world needs less people, not more. Since the 70s we were warned about overpopulation and the environment, and we just added another billion people anyway.
1970 world pop was 3.6B. 2025 8.2B
We just added another 4.6B
Largely in the global south who will be migrating to the West en masse