Who Is Childfree or Has Concerns About Having Their Own Children?

[Debater Slayer]

This thread (inspired by this one) is for those of us who are childfree or likely to remain so for any reason--inlcuding those of us like the idea of having children if not for specific concerns.

Personally, I especially love babies and small children and would love to be surrounded by my children when I'm old. Whenever I get the chance to be around small children, I find it heartwarming to spend time with them and feel quite protective of them.

However, if I do end up raising children, they would probably be adopted rather than my own. Furthermore, before having children or adopting, I would need to be absolutely sure I was in a decently developed and free country (especially so that my children would be able to safely be themselves and live their lives no matter their religion, sexuality, gender, etc.), had a comfortable financial situation, and had savings in case of any emergencies, especially medical ones. As I said in the other thread:

Whether one chooses to have children or not, I generally think it's important not to denigrate another person for their choice whether implicitly or explicitly.

I love the idea of having children, myself, but mainly due to climate change and the strong possibility of major turbulence in our current way of life in coming decades, I'm not very keen on having my own. I also wouldn't have children in my country of birth due to its awful standards of living and quality of education and life compared to most of the developed world.

Perhaps I might end up adopting one day.

What about you, fellow childfree RFers?

Please avoid any denigration of people who choose to have children. This thread is for us to express our opinions, not to disrespect anyone else.

 

[sun rise]

We never had children because my wife was not interested in being a mom. Fortunately we never had much pressure from our parents either so it was not a big deal in our lives.

 

[muichimotsu]

This thread (inspired by this one) is for those of us who are childfree or likely to remain so for any reason--inlcuding those of us like the idea of having children if not for specific concerns.

Personally, I especially love babies and small children and would love to be surrounded by my children when I'm old. Whenever I get the chance to be around small children, I find it heartwarming to spend time with them and feel quite protective of them.

However, if I do end up raising children, they would probably be adopted rather than my own. Furthermore, before having children or adopting, I would need to be absolutely sure I was in a decently developed and free country (especially so that my children would be able to safely be themselves and live their lives no matter their religion, sexuality, gender, etc.), had a comfortable financial situation, and had savings in case of any emergencies, especially medical ones. As I said in the other thread:



What about you, fellow childfree RFers?

Please avoid any denigration of people who choose to have children. This thread is for us to express our opinions, not to disrespect anyone else.

I have really never thought about having kids except in some fantastical sense of what might be in a relationship, but 1) not in a romantic relationship anyway and 2) I'd honestly prefer to advocate for animal welfare and take care of animals, because I relate far better to them and socialize in a way I think people would be shocked at, given how I'm often reserved and withdrawn around people even those I'm familiar with.

My friend put it this way for why he doesn't want kids, and it almost applies to me in a way, "I can barely take care of myself, I don't want to try and take care of a tiny person,"

 

[muichimotsu]

I'm glad my parents are understanding, heck, my brother may not have kids afaik and it's a similar dynamic that I have in mind: my parents will have grandkittens, no problem and they have plenty of grandnieces and nephews anyway to spoil

 

[muichimotsu]

The only "denigration" I would have is those who seem to have children beyond their means, but that's a whole other tangent on childcare in America especially and also other messy ideas that are somehow worried about being "replaced" that I won't go into

 

[Secret Chief]

This thread (inspired by this one) is for those of us who are childfree or likely to remain so for any reason--inlcuding those of us like the idea of having children if not for specific concerns.

Personally, I especially love babies and small children and would love to be surrounded by my children when I'm old. Whenever I get the chance to be around small children, I find it heartwarming to spend time with them and feel quite protective of them.

However, if I do end up raising children, they would probably be adopted rather than my own. Furthermore, before having children or adopting, I would need to be absolutely sure I was in a decently developed and free country (especially so that my children would be able to safely be themselves and live their lives no matter their religion, sexuality, gender, etc.), had a comfortable financial situation, and had savings in case of any emergencies, especially medical ones. As I said in the other thread:



What about you, fellow childfree RFers?

Please avoid any denigration of people who choose to have children. This thread is for us to express our opinions, not to disrespect anyone else.

Simply never felt the urge to.

 

[syo]

I have a niece who I adore. And I find cute all children of the world. That's it.

 

[Ashoka]

I have a niece who I adore. And I find cute all children of the world. That's it.

Same here. I have plenty of little ones in my life to love and care for.

 

[Polymath257]

I have one child because my wife at the time insisted. She threatened divorce if I did not go along. I went along.

Biggest mistake of my life.

My daughter is an excellent person and I like her, but I did NOT enjoy being a father. And, ultimately, we divorced anyway (partly because I did not enjoy being a father). So the upshot was years of child support

 

[Notthedarkweb]

It's a complicated thing for me (though I'm no where near the time in my life where I'd be considering having children, God no.) because of the fact that as, Schopenhauer puts it, if reason had true recognition of the suffering of the world, it would rationally not bring about children into existence. It would be sort of like Benatar's asymmetry argument for anti-natalism, that from the point of view of non-existence, an entity would perceive existence as a negative due to the existence of emotional flux. But at the same time, Schopenhauer says that doing this is still being stuck in a web of causality and that one ought to bring out the will into objectification as an-other so that it too can achieve liberation.

And the Christian tradition also doesn't offer much solace here, because the ascetic goal is obviously prized above the lay life, though it isn't that the lay life is normatively discouraged either.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I answered in a different thread, there was a 3rd one that maybe you didn't see. I suppose I could answer from a different angle here, perhaps with broader observations on it.

Ever since the evolution of the many efficiency technologies here in america, some kind of a bottleneck has occurred, whereby reproduction has stifled. And I guess to flesh that out more, you can look up peter zeihan's rap on it. I guess I'd argue that in these modern times, it seems like reproduction requires wisdom, motivation to raise kids, and financial stability, possibly in a different way than before. The cost of living is high here, and to beat that, it's best to do more of a high-profile job - something that machines and computers can't do.

But the other thing I wanted to mention is a paradoxical thing in the culture here, about being single person. And it's that over the course my life, at 36, I have often been told not to have a family, rather explicitly. People have often said that marriage is trouble, and kids are trouble. They have looked tired and exhausted as they told me this. But at the same time, there is a large part of the culture that does seem to view the single state with derision. You can be perceived as weird and 'off,' if you are not married with kids before you are 40.

But a true culture of 'monkhood' is missing here. Yet, western culture had a place for that, and it seemed to be a respectful place. It also seems that in Eastern cultures, the ascetic monk type also had/or possibly still has a place of respect. This also might be true for many other places in the world, it's probably a detail I could find generally, were I to study history or culture for it.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

My partner and I had agreed we both wanted to remain childless right up to about 5 years or so ago when biology hit them hard. But we have had trouble conceiving. We've decided to go back to being childless.

 

[muichimotsu]

I have a niece who I adore. And I find cute all children of the world. That's it.

My friend is like that, he's arguably great with kids (trans man, so there may be a factor of sorts there, that's neither here nor there, really), but has told me multiple times, no kids of his own, no desire

 

[muichimotsu]

I answered in a different thread, there was a 3rd one that maybe you didn't see. I suppose I could answer from a different angle here, perhaps with broader observations on it.

Ever since the evolution of the many efficiency technologies here in america, some kind of a bottleneck has occurred, whereby reproduction has stifled. And I guess to flesh that out more, you can look up peter zeihan's rap on it. I guess I'd argue that in these modern times, it seems like reproduction requires wisdom, motivation to raise kids, and financial stability, possibly in a different way than before. The cost of living is high here, and to beat that, it's best to do more of a high-profile job - something that machines and computers can't do.

But the other thing I wanted to mention is a paradoxical thing in the culture here, about being single person. And it's that over the course my life, at 36, I have often been told not to have a family, rather explicitly. People have often said that marriage is trouble, and kids are trouble. They have looked tired and exhausted as they told me this. But at the same time, there is a large part of the culture that does seem to view the single state with derision. You can be perceived as weird and 'off,' if you are not married with kids before you are 40.

But a true culture of 'monkhood' is missing here. Yet, western culture had a place for that, and it seemed to be a respectful place. It also seems that in Eastern cultures, the ascetic monk type also had/or possibly still has a place of respect. This also might be true for many other places in the world, it's probably a detail I could find generally, were I to study history or culture for it.

It depends a bit, but yeah, monks garner respect in Eastern contexts, but are also technically permitted to a degree to be married, though not sure about children in that context. Technically that's also allowed to a degree in Christian contexts, ministers in particular, I believe

Buddhism is the context I'm thinking of and those monks that have taken more strict vows cannot get married, yes, but then there are monks that are closer to vicars or such in a Christian context, serving as a connection to the public, and they seem to be permitted marriage, though that might be a bit variable with some denominations.

Japanese Buddhists seem to have that permission, unless you've made it clear it's a vow of celibacy, not necessarily required for all Buddhist clergy, seemingly