It's multi-faceted. Part of the desire to have kids is simply the desire to have children around. It's the idea that a community without children is incomplete.

It's multi-faceted. Part of the desire to have kids is simply the desire to have children around. It's the idea that a community without children is incomplete. Children have many bad characteristics but they also have qualities that most adults have lost. Children are enthusiastic, sincere, unjaded and open to new experiences. They find joy and fascination in the ordinary things which adults have long lost interest in. Where adults obsess over profit and loss, a child will play with a pile of dirt and a shovel all afternoon. The world needs profits but it also needs the continuous renewal and reminder of wonder that children provide. Another aspect is more abstract, maybe? When I was a child I was loved and I always had adults around who looked after me and caught me when I made mistakes and made everything right. My parents weren't perfect and made many mistakes themselves but as a child I really believed that the world was as it should be and if there was a problem someone would make it right. Of course as an adult I know that isn't the case but the consequence of that environment is a potency that has always been a part of me. I think that relationship between child and parent is something that needs to exist in the world and the best way to ensure that is to take on the role of the parent. Another way to see it is that I owe my parents a debt so great I cannot possible repay it, no matter what I do for them. My only chance of relief is to take that debt and "burden" another generation.