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Agreed completely, but I’ll add another point. About 50% of my friends are university+ educated women of different ethnicities, but all living in first world co
by kredd 3y ago
Agreed completely, but I’ll add another point. About 50% of my friends are university+ educated women of different ethnicities, but all living in first world countries. We’re also all in our late 20s or 30s, so it’s becoming a “now or never” kind of dilemma for some of them.
We used to make “oh it’s expensive!” excuse until we started making decent money. Now that excuse doesn’t work, but there has been a significant precedence showing you can have a fulfilling life without having a child. You can have even a better one unless you have psychological attachment to it. I’ve heard my friends getting baby fever here and there, but then quick reality check of how much work it would be reminds them it’s not worth it.
And I completely agree, what’s the point? If you have some sort of spiritual or religious beliefs about life, maybe you can excuse it. But my circles don’t buy into those. We’ve also discussed global depopulation issues on different occasions, and consensus was “well, we didn’t cause this awful environment, so it’s not our problem”. Some sort of game theory problem where if you participate you’re more likely to be screwed unless majority participates. But if you don’t participate, you’re definitely on the winning side.
And another note, my friends in their late 30s/40s who always wanted to have a child have exactly one child for myriad of reasons. And obviously that’s not enough.
Sorry for the rant, but maybe the older generations were a bit more conscious rather than kicking the can down the road.
- sho_hn 3y agoSee, the thing is that I cannot entirely shake the feeling that part of this stance is a certain laziness/complacency, essentially a lack of interest in any challenging activities. What I mean is: A lot of the people who come down against child-rearing for lifestyle reasons assign a lot of value to things they'd rather do instead because they provide "great experiences I'd miss out on because I won't have time or money anymore" like "traveling". Which is of course true, having kids is a trade-of. But doesn't raising kids also provide a big set of exciting experiences you are trading-of against? Sure, you can prefer one or the other at will, and it could absolutely be true that your pick is best for you. But I'll say that my friends who are into activities/experiences that provide challenge (e.g. sports, adventuring, what have you) also are often into having kids. That makes me wonder if there's not something to cultivating the kind of experiences you seek to have.
- FreshStart 3y agoBeehiveourall hacked to go against most basic instinct as proof of concept. Social engineering progress,but to offer no api for the hacker is selected for. Those with api go into the catcentration camp. The final conflict emerges abstract organisms (companies) vs unhackable societys trying to dislodge lifeblood (workforce) from these societies whole contributing nothing back.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago> But doesn't raising kids also provide a big set of exciting experiences you are trading-of against? Isn't this just FOMO? Some people will enjoy the experience of raising kids, some will not. Is it not better to regret not having kids than to have them and regret having them? https://www.today.com/health/child-free-adults-are-happy-parents-study-finds-today-t223858 https://www.today.com/health/child-free-adults-are-happy-par... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0252528 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- sho_hn 3y ago> Isn't this just FOMO? I'd say plenty of people do things because they can envision it might be great, not because they feel FOMO. Do you never look forward to things without FOMO being the cause? It also depends on how much of a reasonable idea you have about what you'd be getting yourself into, e.g. from participating in siblings raising children or other opportunities.
- nonethewiser 3y agoI care for my children because they need it and are mine, not because they are my preferred hobby.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoI don't doubt that, but speaking as someone building a non profit in stealth that covers the cost of permanent birth control for folks who can't get it completely covered by health insurance (or who have to rely on medical tourism to obtain it), I've spoken to many folks who adamantly don't want children and not because they are lazy or don't want a challenge. Kids are a choice, not a mandatory checkbox. That is the thesis.