Yes. Having kids is the simplest and most natural way to get this sentiment of usefulness and achievement that is much harder to get from a daily job. RMS and other creators get this from their creations, but it is not given to everyone to have enough talent and dedication to make something useful to the others. So when they die they leave something behind. Another option is to believe in God and afterlife, which is just denying that we are mortals, but it requires a very strong self-persuasion skill, which is also not given to everyone. For me, I will just leave my kids behind, and it is enough.
(By the way, leaving a new new Javascript framework does not count, sadly.)
Huge numbers of couples in Europe, Japan, Korea, etc have decided to not have kids, so clearly they can "afford" to not have them. Unless you can show a link between not having kids and having psychological problems (and I don't mind just a simple correlation on the whole society, I mean per couple), I'd say that's just like, your opinion, man.
> Huge numbers of couples in Europe, Japan, Korea, etc have decided to not have kids, so clearly they can "afford" to not have them.
Do you have any proof of this? IMO, the declining birth rate is more of a consequence of a huge number of couples deciding to only have one child (so one child per 2 people -> eventual extinction).
Among women born in 1960, 17% in the U.S. were childless at approximately age 40, compared with 22% in the United Kingdom, 19% in Finland and the Netherlands, and 17% in Italy and Ireland. Rates ranged from 12% to 14% for Spain, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and Sweden, and from 7% to 11% for several Eastern European countries and Iceland.
The population of childless aged couples, especially women, is expected to grow rapidly. In Italy and the US, for example, the population of childless women aged 65 or older is expected to nearly quadruple over the next four decades.
(By the way, leaving a new new Javascript framework does not count, sadly.)