[philangist]

This comment actually triggered something in me and I wanted to write a dismissive and condescending response but in the spirit of HN I’d like to try a different approach.

I’ve honestly never been able to understand this kind of thinking (uniformly ruling children as a negative because of the downsides), but I’d be curious to understand more about your perspective.

How do you weigh the joy and meaning many people find in having a family against the economic and time freedom costs?

Or the fact that societies do need to continue having children in order to: sustain economic growth, service their elderly population (that will be us in a few years to decades), maintain their armed forces, perpetuate their culture and values into the future, invest in scientific research, etc.

Are these not things you value? Or do you just see the tradeoff as not worth it?

[BeetleB]

> How do you weigh the joy and meaning many people find in having a family against the economic and time freedom costs?

That's a very presumptuous question.

I don't know if the original commenter has kids or a family, but I can assure you that not everyone finds as much joy in it as you may. You can easily end up with a kid that just hates your guts, and is problematic in many other ways to boot.

[abc123abc123]

I like this. If you can share your email address I will give you a personal answer.

[dripdry45]

It’s not that these aren’t valuable. It’s that you can also see the enormous damage done to children and the suffering that you put them through as parents. Life is a grueling, often thankless and cruel situation. It has no real explanation and we toss more and more people into the meat grinder every year.

I see very little love from parents, but I generally see an enormous amount of selfishness. True betrayal, overt and subtle abuse, and kids seem more to push through that to really thrive… occasionally.

This idea that someone has never felt to love this powerful before? Incredibly selfish. It feels almost disgusting to write about let alone really think about. Who the hell are these people saying these things? Do they even hear themselves?

Every metric and every explanation I ever hear or read about when it comes to kids seems… ultimately selfish. The future for civilization looks awfully bleak, and bringing children to this world? Now?! Their future is a dodgy proposition at best.

Having children consistently seems to be for people with little creativity, little prospect in their lives, and very little thought or consideration for a wide and colorful world which could actually use some help instead of holding up in a house for 20 years.

Society uses our biology against us. It uses it to create enormous anxiety, depression, and poverty through having children. I wish to live the second half of my life in a meaningful way rather than shackling some unsuspecting little-me to the insane whims of hyper consumerist and capitalist culture designed only to extract everything from them and create as much anxiety and hurt as possible, that it might produce as much from them as possible.

For someone to not see that this is what most societies have become? The height of blindness; i’m not sure I’ve ever seen a parent in America who didn’t have their kids as part of this culture of spectacle , of blindly shambling without critical thinking. It’s as if most people want to collect all the check boxes in life, like little Pokémon, little experiences that they simply must have and show off to people to fluff their ego.

Sure, the process produces all kinds of crazy chemicals but so do hallucinogenic drugs. They’re basically both the same thing, but one of them really makes people unhealthy, intense, and emotionally unbalanced while the other just makes them see weird stuff that isn’t there.

The more you look at it, just the less it makes sense. All the uncritical, thoughtless people that I’ve ever met in my life are the ones having kids, while all the people I’ve respected, who are generally considerate, intelligent, kind, intentional, mindful, and honestly quite accomplished and as helpful as possible toward their fellow people? None of them have kids. Not a single one. Not my entire life. Well one. One, and it’s such a bad experience, and is so painful and difficult for he, his wife, and the child that he says he would never wish it on his worst enemy, despite absolutely loving his child and doing his best to demonstrate that every day.

I know it’s a bit rambling, but there you go.

[abc123abc123]

Wise words. But you must remember that society is a self-perpetuating system, that grows to consume all, like cancer, and for "it" (society) to exist, children must be produced to fuel its growth. Politicians, the sole benefactors of the modern society, therefore scream about children to fuel the machine.

Of course there are kind and loving parents, but you are right in that many (most?) just follow their biological program on autopilot, never thinking about the consequences.

But I do think, at some level, the species is starting to realize how unsustainable this is, and we see this in dropping fertility and child birth levels.

These levels I think, will only start to increase again, once society has adapted to man, instead of like today, when authoritarian politicians try to adapt man, pushing him like a cog wheel into the machinery of the state. Man is now tired, and refuses, and as a result, more and more people just stop procreating, which I see as a sign of health.

[CalRobert]

I think your view is… skewed… but also, remember that many parents are not, in fact, in America.