Under capitalism life is a Russian roulette and having a kid is just throwing dice on wether they will have a good life or not, and you need to take jobs that you don’t want to do when times are tough and are always tired from work and coming back home to have to take care of them. Sounds like a nightmare. The worst part is the uncertainty of “will my family survive if I get laid off”, not worth it.
You manage when you have them. I personally refuse to let children be a class privilege.
doesn’t seem fair to the kid, but growing up rich is abuse too.
You got it. There’s no perfect scenario where you can have kids. Taking a step back, most of humanity has been raised in conditions infinitely worse than what I can offer my own children. While I may struggle as my parents did before me, I grew up well-adjusted and well-educated, even if not always happy or content. Why deny myself children based on the same conditions that created me?
i certainly wouldn’t want to be born now. i think you’re underestimating how bad climate change will be.
why should your child live a life of suffering just to gratify you?
I’m pretty sure my kids generation isn’t going to see the worst of it. Everything’s hopeless on that front if we don’t raise a better next generation, anyway.
why should your child live a life of suffering just to gratify you?
Children are gratifying but infamously hard & life altering. No one’s doing it for kicks & because it’s a fun time. If my kid is suffering it’d be news to me; if I find that I’m unable to control the suffering they experience as an adult, that’s just the universal parental experience. You do your best and prepare them for the world they live in.
Raising revolutionary children is a revolutionary act.
Usually poorer people can afford kids because they are raised within a community of extended family/friends. Of course that configuration doesnt really exist in the anglosphere at all really.
Most people in the world having kids are materially impoverished and managing to raise decent people. It’s tough but people figure it out
Could be an antidote to purposeless nihilism; that the world is worth fighting for to preserve their future, for ones folks are willing to die for.
My sister and her husband together make enough money in a month to pay my rent for half a year and they barely have anything to spend due to having to raise & provide for four kids on top of themselves.
Like they aren’t financially unstable exactly but it wouldn’t take much to push them into that situation.
That’s the neat part. They don’t!
Like others said, when you have them, you figure out a way to manage.
Tangentially related: I was at my sister’s recently, visiting for Christmas. One kid under 10, surrounded by mountains of toys, but instead of playing with those she chooses to make up her own game using an old umbrella. I loved that.
I don’t think they do. I got a job at 25, and one year and half later, I’m still giving out 25-50% of my earnings every month to my parents because they’ve lived their whole lives in debt since marriage.
I come from a global south country though, and some people still feel obligated to have children because of longstanding beliefs.
Most of them are rich or got accidentally pregnant and now can’t get an abortion
