[KolibriFly]

Parenting can be deeply meaningful and fulfilling, and your experience is a powerful reminder of that. But I'd be cautious about chalking up declining birth rates to selfishness. People today are navigating a very different world

[thinkingemote]

I think the issue is that the very different world is different because it's about the self and the individual. I am the most important thing. Human rights are about the person. My body. I can still be selfish and unselfish in my consumer choices. I can be unselfish and share my cake with you but I still get to eat my cake. What choices I make define who I am. The identities I freely adopt make me whom I am. The rewards of life impact me first.

It used to be about sacrifice and responsibilities. It's about giving up on choice. It's about not having cake. Our grandparents were defined by their responsibilities not their choices. Their identity was assigned to them as parent, it wasn't something they made themselves. It's horrific to think about for many (including me). How could I advocate for less of me?

A fear of the future of the world is about my future identity. Indeed we fear giving up our identity. We even want to die on our own terms. Many comments here talk about having babies as a kind of economic consumer choice and I imagine some parents do have children as a luxury good. "If only it was cheaper." It's still a choice of the self.

Our world is different in that it's hard to think about and talk of a world where the self is less important than the other and yet being a parent is usually about putting the child before themselves. Ironically therefore, babies are the best way to talk about not living in a selfish world!