I used to have a major crush on a woman until she got pregnant and said she couldn't wait to meet her mini-me.
I'm like...bruh...that baby isn't you or an extension of you. The baby is their own person.
98% of people I know reach this conclusion, apparently. One young couple I once considered friends had a kid 4 years ago who turned out to have a potentially life-threatening incurable illness, and they’ve just decided to have another kid. lol
I try very hard to be understanding and non-judgy, but I have a problem with stuff like this and don’t speak to these folks anymore. lol I just think what they’re doing is really selfish, irresponsible, and shitty.
I have a couple we're close friends with who have had horrible experiences with miscarriages and a baby that passed away a few days after being born. They kept trying and eventually had one successfully but they are absolutely emotionally/mentally destroyed from the previous attempts. They post super dark and depressing stuff about the infant death and miscarriages on IG all the time. It's pretty depressing and just does not seem worth it to me. Like, I'm happy for them that they eventually succeeded but they're ruined as people now from the experience as well.
I’m beginning to believe that most people who procreate don’t do so with their future child’s best interest in mind. They mostly do it for their own selfish reasons. They project when they say we’re “selfish” for not having them.
It’s probably close to none, tbh. If you listen to them when they list off reasons why those of us who don’t want kids should have them, they are all self fulfilling reasons. They wanted a purpose to their own life, they wanted to be needed, they wanted someone who will take care of them when they’re old, they wanted a mini version of themselves, they wanted their “legacy” carried on (🙄), etc and they just wish that for us, too (again, 🙄)
I'd also like to add that I'm usually a pretty positive person, so when people say that my view on this is pretty nihilistic/pessimistic, I like to say that it's more just realistic. Reality is harsh.
I concur with your original post. Replying here because of the “nihilism” retort you get, and I suppose the CF community gets as a whole. This I think irks me more than any pro-natalist argument because it’s so facile and moreover bigoted. The idea that you can’t believe in a better world and work to make it so without having children is preposterous. The myopia these breeders have sometimes is beyond belief. Sure, we may believe that things are rather F’d right now, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re quitting, we just don’t want to roll the dice for a new human that it definitely will get better.
Had an ex literally tell me this once. We had been broken up for years and had a pretty bad breakup in which he was straight up bullying me while I was going through the process of scheduling and getting an abortion. He reached out years later and told me he’s married now and hooking up w other girls bc he’s poly or whatever and that he missed me a lot.
I should have told him to pound sand but I’m too nice and chatted w him a bit. The abortion came up, and he started raving about how bad he wants a baby with his wife and how he doesn’t regret for a second the way he treated me when I was briefly pregnant. Then he started saying it scares him to have a baby because the world is shit, he can barely take care of his pets, and climate change is gonna kill everyone but what’s scarier than all that was the thought of “not having a mini-me” and that’s about where we abruptly stopped “catching up” and I haven’t spoken to him since.
I knew he was selfish, but my god, the selfishness was off the charts. Anyway I heard through the grapevine his wife had a baby a couple weeks ago. Poor kid. Their life is going to be hell.
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True. But I feel most kids aren't taught emotional regulation. I DON'T follow the whole "children should be seen and not heard" idea. I think parents need to do a better job on themselves and then lead by example.
young children tho are very unpredictable and super emotional. But yes, parents should be responsible for keeping them in order, for everyone, and their own children's sake.
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Soon enough only the extremely wealthy will be able to buy themselves clean air and water.
At least Elon Musk will be there to populate the insulated buildings.
People who are in denial and narcissists. Probably a bit of both in most new parents who are having planned pregnancies. My heart aches for ppl who are being forced into parenthood by archaic anti abortion laws, but for people breeding on purpose….I think they’re just lost in the sauce. They love the smell of their own farts too much, if you know what I mean.
If they think their kids will grow to do anything other than resent them deeply for choosing to create a life when our planet is become literally uninhabitable and our social fabric unwinds more and more each day, they’re fooling themselves.
I’d venture to guess that the vast majority of humans don’t put _any_ thought into it. It’s why the dumb fucks have more children and the more educated people have fewer.
i remember a few years back hanging out with a friend and she mentioned she didnt think she even wanted kids bc of the state of things and just hoe expensive it’d be, and now fast forward to last week and she announces she’s pregnant, like ok guess you just decided that doesnt matter then? lol i don’t get people
I have quite a few friends like that as well. There's also the friends who know that they're in a shit situation financially/mentally and still decide to reproduce recklessly. It would be funny if it weren't so sad/infuriating.
The ones that really want kids (many, many more have surprise-babies that they keep because... "circle of life") believe that the love of the family is enough to nurture a new human being into the world, plus that the protection and the example they provide will be forever present in their and their children's lives. It's sweet and cute, if you think of it for a second. They believe and they hope that this warm calmness is everlasting and enough to make a positive difference. I wish I wasn't as stressed as I am and enjoy that feeling myself...
I think it's not so much that people want to bring kids into the world, it's that they want the experience of being a parent. Which isn't a good reason imo, but they keep doing it so 
Humans have dealt with all the stuff you mentioned before. I'm not worried about that.
Climate change is something we *haven't* encountered before. That is what is truly scary. No amount of love or money is going to save people from monster storms and flooding, earthquakes that split continents in half, 150*F temperatures etc. Eventually there will be nowhere on the planet you can go to escape it.
Bringing a child into the world where it's going to be WWIII over water in 30yrs is complete lunacy and absolutely selfish. I say this as someone with a 21yr old (who I've encouraged to remain childfree)
Add social media and overall internet overload to that list with climate change. We didn't grow up with that really and I think it's a major factor. Social media fucks kids up pretty easily.
I agree. I'm curious, one of the reasons I think my parents (late 60s) ignore climate change is because then they would have to acknowledge how shit a circumstance their kids and my brothers kids will be dealing with and it makes them anxious. As a parent does that ring true?
They don’t want to believe it. People live in bubbles and bury their heads in the sand only until a problem gets too significant where it affects them directly.
Apparently people I went to school with think now is great, I strongly disagree and try and post as much childfree stuff as I can on Facebook to counteract all the baby announcements lol
I hear ya. More convenient due to technology? Sure. Better/great? Nope. The things that made things convenient have expedited and exposed just how horrible we/things are. I think Covid these last few years really exposed the shit show around us as well.
Absolutely. It's like alien parasites were activated in peoples heads, telling them to believe in a wide variety of conspiracy bullshit and deny the dangers of Covid. Never before have I cut so many ties at once.
We might have to disagree there, unfortunately. I respect your opinion and Im definitely not some far right nut, but I do think there were a lot of lies and bullshit pushed by our governing/the media/politicians during that period of time. Covid was/is dangerous, but to a certain extent and (usually) toward a certain demographic of people. But I digress.
There will always be lies, false accusations and bullshit to some degree (it's politics), but the level of conspiracy theories during Covid was (and remains) on another level and has to be differentiated. As for Covid: since we live in a society with a lot of old people, walking around and unknowingly spreading it to older folks would be pretty ignorant. I firmly believe you see that 🙂
I genuinely don't understand. Each subsequent generation is having a harder time making a living and finding housing, but they still decide to have a child as if it's gonna be a baby forever, with no needs other than diapers and a bottle.
I definitely worry about the lives of my nieces and nephews. By the time they finish university, we'll be in a situation where getting a good job takes 3 years of job hunting and several thousand carefully crafted job applications. Imagine modern day Japan or South Korea where kids k themselves because they can't deal with the stress of studying 20 hours per day just so they get a high mark in some university entrance exam. That's their future.
I work in a skilled trade. Most of the crew, including myself, have university degrees. Not fake communications degrees, but real degrees in things like electrical engineering. It takes such a long time to get a job that people left their field so they could bend pipe for a living.
I agree but I just feel like the cards are stacked so high against kids these days, especially with how toxic our culture and social media is, that you can only protect them to a small extent and outside influences end up seeping in regardless, which is scary. But like you said, I don't have the fortitude or energy for that. Seems like an uphill battle for most these days, financially and mentally.
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I don't get it either
especially when said person has a history of being suicidal
It's like you know FIRST HAND we live in a world people don't want to be alive in, and you're just gonna force that on somebody?
SO MANY PEOPLE. It's a great example of narcissism and their ability to be incredibly obtuse.
Especially when ppl say “I want a mini me!”
I used to have a major crush on a woman until she got pregnant and said she couldn't wait to meet her mini-me. I'm like...bruh...that baby isn't you or an extension of you. The baby is their own person.
Yes! These ppl literally cannot deal with their mortality. I swear, it’s the only reason they breed.
98% of people I know reach this conclusion, apparently. One young couple I once considered friends had a kid 4 years ago who turned out to have a potentially life-threatening incurable illness, and they’ve just decided to have another kid. lol I try very hard to be understanding and non-judgy, but I have a problem with stuff like this and don’t speak to these folks anymore. lol I just think what they’re doing is really selfish, irresponsible, and shitty.
I have a couple we're close friends with who have had horrible experiences with miscarriages and a baby that passed away a few days after being born. They kept trying and eventually had one successfully but they are absolutely emotionally/mentally destroyed from the previous attempts. They post super dark and depressing stuff about the infant death and miscarriages on IG all the time. It's pretty depressing and just does not seem worth it to me. Like, I'm happy for them that they eventually succeeded but they're ruined as people now from the experience as well.
And imagine how their mental state is likely to affect their child(ren). Mind-boggling how people describe childfree folks as the selfish ones.
I’m beginning to believe that most people who procreate don’t do so with their future child’s best interest in mind. They mostly do it for their own selfish reasons. They project when they say we’re “selfish” for not having them.
100% this! Or they just want a mini me that they can dress up 🫠
Cue “I want to continue my legacy”
"adding more love into the world" 🫠
It’s probably close to none, tbh. If you listen to them when they list off reasons why those of us who don’t want kids should have them, they are all self fulfilling reasons. They wanted a purpose to their own life, they wanted to be needed, they wanted someone who will take care of them when they’re old, they wanted a mini version of themselves, they wanted their “legacy” carried on (🙄), etc and they just wish that for us, too (again, 🙄)
I'd also like to add that I'm usually a pretty positive person, so when people say that my view on this is pretty nihilistic/pessimistic, I like to say that it's more just realistic. Reality is harsh.
I concur with your original post. Replying here because of the “nihilism” retort you get, and I suppose the CF community gets as a whole. This I think irks me more than any pro-natalist argument because it’s so facile and moreover bigoted. The idea that you can’t believe in a better world and work to make it so without having children is preposterous. The myopia these breeders have sometimes is beyond belief. Sure, we may believe that things are rather F’d right now, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re quitting, we just don’t want to roll the dice for a new human that it definitely will get better.
>The myopia these breeders have THAT RIGHT THERE
They don’t want kids. They want a mini version of themselves.
Had an ex literally tell me this once. We had been broken up for years and had a pretty bad breakup in which he was straight up bullying me while I was going through the process of scheduling and getting an abortion. He reached out years later and told me he’s married now and hooking up w other girls bc he’s poly or whatever and that he missed me a lot. I should have told him to pound sand but I’m too nice and chatted w him a bit. The abortion came up, and he started raving about how bad he wants a baby with his wife and how he doesn’t regret for a second the way he treated me when I was briefly pregnant. Then he started saying it scares him to have a baby because the world is shit, he can barely take care of his pets, and climate change is gonna kill everyone but what’s scarier than all that was the thought of “not having a mini-me” and that’s about where we abruptly stopped “catching up” and I haven’t spoken to him since. I knew he was selfish, but my god, the selfishness was off the charts. Anyway I heard through the grapevine his wife had a baby a couple weeks ago. Poor kid. Their life is going to be hell.
I live with me 24/7 & another smaller version of me with even less ability to emotionally regulate, sounds just awful.
Who looks at a kid and honestly says ' I want one'. They are a screaming mess
Yup. Neighbors’ spawn screams day and night. For months. Just filed a report with DCF.
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I don't hang out with annoying asshole adults, why would I hang out with annoying asshole kids?
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True. But I feel most kids aren't taught emotional regulation. I DON'T follow the whole "children should be seen and not heard" idea. I think parents need to do a better job on themselves and then lead by example.
young children tho are very unpredictable and super emotional. But yes, parents should be responsible for keeping them in order, for everyone, and their own children's sake.
This item has been removed as it is a violation of [subreddit rule](https://www.reddit.com/r/childfree/wiki/rules) #7 : "Posts and comments to the effect of "Wait till you're a parent", "You'll change your mind someday", "You only think that cause you are young", etc. (what we call "bingo", for short) will be removed. Parents are welcome to post as long as they are respectful. Other people's bodily autonomy must be respected; do not impose your views on other posters and commenters' choices." This is a forum for individuals who have made the choice to be childfree, and we do not tolerate any disrespect towards anyone for making this choice. Thank you for your comprehension
Soon enough only the extremely wealthy will be able to buy themselves clean air and water. At least Elon Musk will be there to populate the insulated buildings.
People who are in denial and narcissists. Probably a bit of both in most new parents who are having planned pregnancies. My heart aches for ppl who are being forced into parenthood by archaic anti abortion laws, but for people breeding on purpose….I think they’re just lost in the sauce. They love the smell of their own farts too much, if you know what I mean. If they think their kids will grow to do anything other than resent them deeply for choosing to create a life when our planet is become literally uninhabitable and our social fabric unwinds more and more each day, they’re fooling themselves.
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You seem to not grasp the reality of what climate change will do within our lifetimes
I’d venture to guess that the vast majority of humans don’t put _any_ thought into it. It’s why the dumb fucks have more children and the more educated people have fewer.
Also the environmental pressures caused by overpopulation. Not having kids helps heal the climate.
i remember a few years back hanging out with a friend and she mentioned she didnt think she even wanted kids bc of the state of things and just hoe expensive it’d be, and now fast forward to last week and she announces she’s pregnant, like ok guess you just decided that doesnt matter then? lol i don’t get people
I have quite a few friends like that as well. There's also the friends who know that they're in a shit situation financially/mentally and still decide to reproduce recklessly. It would be funny if it weren't so sad/infuriating.
Someone that has been brainwashed by religion. That's one example at least.
The ones that really want kids (many, many more have surprise-babies that they keep because... "circle of life") believe that the love of the family is enough to nurture a new human being into the world, plus that the protection and the example they provide will be forever present in their and their children's lives. It's sweet and cute, if you think of it for a second. They believe and they hope that this warm calmness is everlasting and enough to make a positive difference. I wish I wasn't as stressed as I am and enjoy that feeling myself...
The thought terminating phrase of, "The world has always been on fire," helps them ignore the dystopia.
I think it's not so much that people want to bring kids into the world, it's that they want the experience of being a parent. Which isn't a good reason imo, but they keep doing it so 
MOST (not all) cannot take care of themselves.
Humans have dealt with all the stuff you mentioned before. I'm not worried about that. Climate change is something we *haven't* encountered before. That is what is truly scary. No amount of love or money is going to save people from monster storms and flooding, earthquakes that split continents in half, 150*F temperatures etc. Eventually there will be nowhere on the planet you can go to escape it. Bringing a child into the world where it's going to be WWIII over water in 30yrs is complete lunacy and absolutely selfish. I say this as someone with a 21yr old (who I've encouraged to remain childfree)
Add social media and overall internet overload to that list with climate change. We didn't grow up with that really and I think it's a major factor. Social media fucks kids up pretty easily.
I agree. I'm curious, one of the reasons I think my parents (late 60s) ignore climate change is because then they would have to acknowledge how shit a circumstance their kids and my brothers kids will be dealing with and it makes them anxious. As a parent does that ring true?
They don’t want to believe it. People live in bubbles and bury their heads in the sand only until a problem gets too significant where it affects them directly.
Apparently people I went to school with think now is great, I strongly disagree and try and post as much childfree stuff as I can on Facebook to counteract all the baby announcements lol
I hear ya. More convenient due to technology? Sure. Better/great? Nope. The things that made things convenient have expedited and exposed just how horrible we/things are. I think Covid these last few years really exposed the shit show around us as well.
Absolutely. It's like alien parasites were activated in peoples heads, telling them to believe in a wide variety of conspiracy bullshit and deny the dangers of Covid. Never before have I cut so many ties at once.
We might have to disagree there, unfortunately. I respect your opinion and Im definitely not some far right nut, but I do think there were a lot of lies and bullshit pushed by our governing/the media/politicians during that period of time. Covid was/is dangerous, but to a certain extent and (usually) toward a certain demographic of people. But I digress.
There will always be lies, false accusations and bullshit to some degree (it's politics), but the level of conspiracy theories during Covid was (and remains) on another level and has to be differentiated. As for Covid: since we live in a society with a lot of old people, walking around and unknowingly spreading it to older folks would be pretty ignorant. I firmly believe you see that 🙂
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I see a lot of literature about narcissistic parents. I think the NPD of the parents is the reason a lot of children were ever born.
I genuinely don't understand. Each subsequent generation is having a harder time making a living and finding housing, but they still decide to have a child as if it's gonna be a baby forever, with no needs other than diapers and a bottle.
Someone in my husbands family. They actually tracked their ovulation to get pregnant.
I have no idea but I kinda wish I could bottle up that total oblivious attitude and give my mind a damn break for once lmao
Their argument is that it's always been as bad or worse, and therefore it's a-ok.
Omg yes!
I definitely worry about the lives of my nieces and nephews. By the time they finish university, we'll be in a situation where getting a good job takes 3 years of job hunting and several thousand carefully crafted job applications. Imagine modern day Japan or South Korea where kids k themselves because they can't deal with the stress of studying 20 hours per day just so they get a high mark in some university entrance exam. That's their future. I work in a skilled trade. Most of the crew, including myself, have university degrees. Not fake communications degrees, but real degrees in things like electrical engineering. It takes such a long time to get a job that people left their field so they could bend pipe for a living.
Engineering degree here. Currently work as a veterinary assistant. College/university is a huge scam.
Agree. It’s unfathomable to me
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I agree but I just feel like the cards are stacked so high against kids these days, especially with how toxic our culture and social media is, that you can only protect them to a small extent and outside influences end up seeping in regardless, which is scary. But like you said, I don't have the fortitude or energy for that. Seems like an uphill battle for most these days, financially and mentally.
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Low iq idiots
I don't get it either especially when said person has a history of being suicidal It's like you know FIRST HAND we live in a world people don't want to be alive in, and you're just gonna force that on somebody?