[cursuve]

Wait... So because I chose a life of not struggling to raise a child and I love my dog; I'm pathetic? What a warped-ass world-view. Maybe I just have no desire to have kids and am enjoying the life not having children warrants me - including pathetically loving my dog. Eff off with your judgements of what I chose the path of my life to be. And, hey, godspeed on your struggle-bus. Apparently it warrants you some entitlements and status, or something...

[fabifabulous]

Seeing pets as a replacement for kids is pathetic. I don‘t hold owning a pet against people. They should just have a healthy relationship with them.

[estearum]

Who said a pet is "a replacement" for kids? What could that even possibly mean?

[wormpilled]

>Wait... So because I chose a life of not struggling to raise a child and I love my dog; I'm pathetic?

It's brutal to say such things and certainly to hear them, but objectively, yes.

[estearum]

This is one of those cases where the people who are most assertive about Doing X (in this case X = having kids) are specifically the types of people you do not want Doing X.

Just unbelievable levels of self-aggrandizement and scorn for your fellow humans in this comment. It is honestly a shame that you could propagate this forward another generation.

Having kids is good. Calling people "pathetic" for not wanting to or not feeling like they would succeed at it is bad and counterproductive.

[wormpilled]

I am simply providing a cold, social darwinist answer to the query. It doesn't bring me pleasure to say it, but I view it as the truth. Life is struggle. Nothing you do will be perfect. None of us were grown in a vat and we are here right now because of that struggle. Finding comfort in an animal that gives you unconditional love is a coping mechanism.

[toomuchtodo]

Kids are the same coping mechanism. After a generation or two, you’ll long be forgotten. Don’t believe me? Tell me something that matters about your great grandparents.

Avoid unnecessary or unwanted struggle, leave those who choose it to it, it is theirs to own and bear.

[TrnsltLife]

My grandparents had my parents. My parents had me. I had my children. Hopefully they will have theirs.

Even if we can't remember, we know they were there. They succeeded in carrying on the species. We can wonder about them and what their lives were like.

"Lo, now, do I see my fathers and my fathers' fathers back to the beginning!"

"I go now to join my fathers, in whose mighty company I shall no longer feel ashamed."

[toomuchtodo]

If you’re happy to pay ~$380k per kid (not including daycare and college) over their 0-18 journey (£250k-£300k in the UK) and whatever it costs to help them survive in adulthood for the experience, help yourself. That’s certainly a choice. The future will not be as welcoming and prosperous as the past.

[cursuve]

This is so logically full of holes I don't even know where to start...

Having children is hard. Life is hard. Avoiding having children is shirking your duty to have a hard life. Dogs shouldn't make you happy because that is coping with life's hardships. Having children, which is hard, is the path one should take to wantonly endure hardship. If you choose not to, you are pathetic...

What if I didn't have a dog or cat, and still chose not to have children? Still pathetic? What if I had children, and hated every minute of it, but fulfilled my duty to endure the hardship... AND still had a dog I love? What if I really really enjoy lemonade - should I avoid that because it brings me joy, but life is inherently supposed to be hard, therefore I am coping and pathetic?

This is such a mind-boggling judgmental stance on what life is and should be and what others should do with their agency over their own lives.

As I said to the wantonly miserable OP who started this bizarre comment thread - godspeed to you! I'd wish you a nice life, but I don't want to go against your philosophy that one should invite hardship into one's life, so... Have a miserable life?

[wormpilled]

>on what life is

Life is procreation, to which you are encouraging failure in it's goal. I don't care what you do, I'm just sharing hard to swallow pills.

[archagon]

The things we say, do, and create have far more of a chance of affecting future generations than our progeny.