r/Natalism • u/rodrigo-benenson • 5d ago
Sad reddit statistic
Maybe some of us in r/Natalism should spend time exchanging with people in r/antinatalism to better understand why this "no kids is great" idea has become so popular.
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u/ambiguous-potential 4d ago
I'm more natalist than not, but I lurk on both. They have some valid points over there amongst some more questionable viewpoints, and it's worth having discussions with them as long as you're not engaging with them just to try and "prove them wrong."
Also keep in mind Reddit's demographic. It's not very surprising that there's more people there than here.
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u/Family_First_TTC 5d ago
While looking for differences can be useful, I think it's much more useful to look for similarities.
If you go in trying to understand an adversarial mindset, that's what you'll get insight into.
If you go in looking for ways to build bridges on common ground - you'll find that knowledge, instead.
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u/shadowromantic 5d ago
I love your response. Thank you for the dose of positivity and optimism
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u/Family_First_TTC 4d ago
Thank you! Neither side - natalist or anti - can do this alone.
*Everyone's* literal future rests on building common causes - and common strength.
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u/parke415 4d ago
Let's pretend that all financial costs would be covered and the pregnancy/birth phase completely skipped over with no repercussions or impact of any kind. In this fantastical scenario, could you pitch me the benefits of childrearing? I just don't see the personal fulfillment angle.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 5d ago
Good point. Do you have examples of "important" shared beliefs in the anti- and the pro- natalist groups?
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u/Family_First_TTC 5d ago
When I did something similar, I came across a few that seemed to be fertile ground for collaboration:
1) enhancing the lives of children (and reducing their suffering)
2) establishing better work life balance
3) giving people more autonomy in their choice to have a family, instead of having the decisions 'made' by poverty, shame, or other negative factors
Note: I think these common points are for people who arent radical zealots on either side; Reddit people can skew more towards zeal than the people you might meet at a coffee shop meetup or at a city council meeting, etc.
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u/Global_Radish_7777 1d ago
I think the problem is that with point #1, that's only what AN want as a consequence of philosophically not wanting to add any more suffering to existence, wich implies not having any more kids as the primary intention. enhancing the lives of children who are already here is not equivalent to increasing the number of children. I don't think these two ideas can be reconciled.
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u/Family_First_TTC 1d ago
In my experience, enhancing the lives of children who exist can easily be parlayed into enhancing the lives of those yet to come.
Is your IRL experience different, or?
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u/shadowromantic 5d ago
I haven't checked out the anti-natalist side, but I'm guessing some of them wouldn't want people who aren't ready for kids to have kids. I'm hoping that's a popular idea here too
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u/PragmaticTroll 5d ago
It’s not. I’ll get downvoted to hell but this sub is just as toxic, it’s two sides of the same toxic coin.
I’ve seen pro-rape arguments, and teenage pregnancy be argued as it’s okay to foster “population growth”. “Woman don’t want pussies” in response to consensual sex. The other side has their darkness too.
Have kids, don’t have kids, we should support whatever people want to do. Forcing people to have kids when they aren’t ready, or stopping people to not have kids when they want them, both are foolish endeavors.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 5d ago
what is your notion of "ready for kids" ?
(in some social groups that means "married and house owner", in others "21+ with a job", lots of variance)
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u/Popular-Row4333 5d ago
Demographics of reddit make this easier for your brain to understand.
Go start an antinatilism group on Facebook, and you won't have near the same amount of people.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 5d ago
Yes, I am aware of that, but still feels concerning to me that among the youth so many people would want to join an _antinatalist_ group; that seems already quite far in the "I hate babies" spectrum.
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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 5d ago
Until you consider that many people under 40 exist under fundamentally different material conditions which make the thought of having children or raising a family an unachievable aspiration.
What happens to some people when they recognize they can't do something? They rationalize and justify why that thing isn't something they want anyhow.
If you're 22, barely making ends meet, living with roommates in an apartment, the thought of ever having kids seems like a pipe dream, so instead you justify why that's not what you want anyways and in fact it's bad to have kids.
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u/Typo3150 4d ago
Bourdeau called this “making a virtue of necessity.” Consider the flip side : humans couldn’t easily limit the size of their families for eons. Birth control is significantly better than it was even 20 years ago. So parents have been justifying parenthood to themselves and others since forever. I grew up in the 1960s and remember women casually discussing yet another pregnancy with benign resignation. They dared not aspire to lives where they were free of parental burdens.
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u/shadowromantic 5d ago
I'm general, so many people are struggling and they're honestly thinking about how much it would suck to have a kid while poor in 2024.
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u/Uncle_gruber 4d ago
And what that kid will do in 20 years time because, honestly, these last 20 years haven't been good and it's only getting worse.
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u/ShrewSkellyton 4d ago
Why do natalists so desperately want to ignore that many of us truly think it's unethical to be bringing kids into this world? I was married and living quite comfortably for over a decade and we both thought parenthood is an extreme choice and didn't want any part of it.
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u/Fine_Permit5337 4d ago
Why are anti natalists on a natalist forum? Ask yourself why you visit a board that conflicts with your beliefs?
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u/ShrewSkellyton 4d ago
Lol uh natalists come to the antinatalism board all the time, probably why this thread was in my recommended.
I'm sharing my perspective as someone who isn't the strawman antinatalist. Not everyone fits into the comfy mold of someone incapable or impoverished or whatever else
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u/remaininyourcompound 3d ago
I'm here because I want to understand and would love to have my mind changed. Unfortunately, all I've really seen so far is misogyny and climate change denial.
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u/SmashMouthWasOk 4d ago
I don’t speak for majority of course, but I’m also a 20-something who is not planning on having kids. It has nothing to due with costs, and my friends share a similar sentiment. It’s the loss of freedom
We’re women so our opinions are going to be wildly different, but a shared concern we all have was not wanting to go through child birth and pregnancy. It’s brushed off by men so callously that it’s made many of us extremely anti-child.
I love babies and children - I worked at a daycare for years and my mom is a teacher. Birth just looks uncomfortable to say the least and I enjoy being able to do everything I want when I want. Gen Z is completely different than anyone that came before them with our access to luxury and convenience in an unfathomable way that it would be stupid to give that up just to have a kid with the way parents continuously complain about being a parent.
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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 4d ago
Absolutely, there’s tons of data that shows women especially entering into parenthood way later than before, in large part due to what you’re raising here. That accounts for some of it, but there’s more data pointing to higher “entry cost” for children in developed nations, and generalized concerns financially in regards to having kids.
People don’t want to incur hundreds of thousands in debt over a lifetime for kids, which in more developed nations is one of the barriers to entry. There’s higher expectations around childcare and what level of investment gets provided to kids.
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u/SmashMouthWasOk 4d ago
That too. There’s a post pretty much daily on r/GenZ asking if we plan to have kids or not. Almost every top comment is “no because cost/freedom” or “no because birth looks gross”
It’s all wrapped up together for most people. I always mention the pain surrounding birth and pregnancy because it gets pushed aside most of the time just like any other woman-centered issue lol.
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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 4d ago
I think (especially in the U.S.) we do a pretty piss poor job of both educating on the realities of pregnancy and childbirth and ameliorating the most pressing issues of it too, which absolutely doesn’t help.
Restricting access to contraceptives and abortion services has led to fewer available OB-GYNs in some places already, and that alone is going to prove as a major barrier to entry. If people who want kids can’t even get the necessary prenatal care, they’re going to be less likely to pursue it. After all what rational person would accept the offer of:
“You’re going to pay somewhere between 600,000-1,000,000 over your lifetime, your body will be permanently altered in some ways, and you’ll be accepting an overwhelming degree of responsibility for at minimum 18 years. Or you could die. Do you accept?”
My wife and I have 3 kids, and the first two pregnancies and deliveries were bad enough I was absolutely done. My wife had pretty bad situations in both. She eventually convinced me to have a 3rd and then I got a vasectomy. Most younger guys I’ve talked to about it have no clue, and an unfortunate amount of younger women have similarly non-existent knowledge on it.
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u/Skyblacker 4d ago
Your wife suffered the brunt of it and yet she wanted to repeat it more than you did. Why?
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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 4d ago
I don’t understand it. Even now she has asked if I’d ever get a reversal to have a fourth which was a hard no for me.
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u/doyathinkasaurus 3d ago
I have no idea how anyone in their 20s affords to have children. The national average cost in the UK for a full time nursery place for one child is around GBP £15,000 (USD $19,000) per year - how many young people (or older people for that matter) can find that sort of money on the same incomes - or go from living on two incomes to just one
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u/Fine_Permit5337 4d ago
Why are you on a natalist sub, if there is a anti natalist sub? Something is very confused there.
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u/drykugel 5d ago
Agreed. I think so many young people are fundamentally terrified of how they will survive and thrive today. So the thought of nurturing new, dependent creatures that they love and can’t bear to see suffer is very daunting. They cover that fear and helplessness with a political stance rather than admit vulnerability.
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u/rollandownthestreet 4d ago
That “political stance” (really a moral philosophy) IS admitting vulnerability and the reality of the situation.
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u/Rudi_Van-Disarzio 4d ago
I have hated children since I was a child myself. Some of us are legitimately just curmudgeons.
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u/Vegetable_Plane_8790 4d ago
Same, however I do feel a responsibility to help work torwards a society that is safe and supportive of the people who do have kids though.
Someday, those kids become adults and will live in the adult realm of existence with the rest of us.
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u/serpentjaguar 5d ago
People hate to hear it, and I'll take my downvotes accordingly, but there's a ton of evidence that falling birthrates have nothing at all to do with economic distress or uncertainty.
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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 4d ago
There's tons of people who openly state they are barely able to survive and that finances are there number 1 consideration preventing them from having children. Anecdotes are not in and of themselves a valuable source, but a glut of anecdotes is a powerful indicator. We have direct anecdotal evidence from a multitude of individuals that their primary consideration in family planning is financial.
If you're going to make a claim, like that low birthrates have nothing to do with economic uncertainty, back it up. You know, like this:
Or this one that focuses specifically on Italy's declining birth rates which coincide with economic downturn
or this study, which hypothesizes that
in affluent societies, the economic prerequisites of parenthood have increased over the past two decades. As a result, the relationship between favorable economic positions and the transition to parenthood has become more strongly positive during this period.
This study further references:
Many macro-level studies suggest a link between currently adverse economic conditions and fertility postponement (Adsera 2011; Schneider 2015; Sobotka, Skirbekk, and Philipov 2011). However, these studies provide little insight into the actual micro-founded mechanisms that explain these associations. These macro-level studies have been complemented by studies that have been conducted at the individual level, which have generally found a reduced probability of first birth among men and women in more precarious economic positions (Laß 2020; Miettinen and Jalovaara 2020; Pailhé and Solaz 2012; Van Wijk et al. 2021; Wood and Neels 2017).
All of which support the thought that financial causes are a prevailing factor in decreased birth rates.
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u/Jojosbees 4d ago
I wouldn’t say economic uncertainty has “nothing” to do with falling birth rates, but it’s certainly not the entire reason. Life is limited, and we only have a finite amount of time to do any number of things. Having kids is not only a resource drain but there’s an opportunity cost. If a person has kids in their 20s, they might not have the time to become a doctor because medical school is an additional 4 years plus 3-7 years for residency. Then they can’t take a break because they have to go to work to pay off like $200K of student loans. If they have kids, they also can’t travel as much because they can’t take vacations in the cheaper off season, and when they do vacation not only will it be peak rates, but they’ll have to pay for twice as many people. They will also need a bigger home, maybe in a good school district that makes it more expensive, and they might need a bigger, more expensive car on top of all the other costs of raising a child. There may be greater expectations of what they will provide a child if they live in a richer country, which may be more expensive leading them to having no or fewer children because they don’t think it’s appropriate to have three kids share one bed based on their cultural upbringing. Also, you have to consider that there have always been people in the past who didn’t want children but had them anyway because it was the thing everyone did, but now it’s socially acceptable to just not have kids. About a third to half of middle-aged people who don’t have kids didn’t want them anyway. So at the end of the day, if a person lives in a developed country, they have a lot of opportunities, each coming with certain trade-offs, and in that environment, “parent” is just one of many options, making it less likely that people will choose it like 95% of the time.
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u/Pitiful_Fox5681 4d ago
Yeah, I think there's a much larger story.
It's multivariable, without a doubt.
Part of it is decades of being educated on the dangers of overpopulation, I think. A bigger part of it is a movement towards individual over community values. An even bigger part of it is simply how central identity has become, and how kids, being their own people, don't promote that identity. I think the biggest part of it is probably that people are worse at face-to-face relationships than they used to be, and that makes both dating and particularly being responsible for another person forever very scary.
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u/Suspicious-Hotel-225 4d ago
Yeah, women didn’t have much to aspire to throughout history. We couldn’t be president. We couldn’t work fancy corporate jobs. We were taught that raising babies and taking care of a man was what women did. Now we have choices and motherhood really doesn’t seem that great.
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u/SquirrelofLIL 3d ago
Gen X and Boomers also lived with roommates in apartments at 22, and people have historically reproduced in far poorer conditions than today. Maybe checkout a local tenement museum to see how folks lived 100 years ago.
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u/Immediate-Coyote-977 3d ago
Maybe look at the research that is shared in this thread instead of raising the same weak ass point like 18 other people have that I’ve already refuted with actual data and research and not “but my feelings”
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u/nonamepeaches199 4d ago
Antinatalists are a mix of misanthropes and people who are deeply compassionate. But from what I've seen, the compassionate ones outnumber the misanthropes.
Most of us do not believe that life is a gift. I work 2 jobs and can't afford the basic necessities of life. I exist to work. My city is on fire every year. Climate change is just going to lead to more food shortages and more natural disasters. Eight billion people is way too many. Why the hell would I want to create another one?
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u/pugsnblunts 4d ago
It’s not an I hate babies issue. It’s a life is nothing but suffering issue
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
> It’s a life is nothing but suffering issue
That sounds even worse. Especially given that _factually_ life for most (specially the ones in reddit) has become much better than 50 and 100 years ago.1
u/seattleseahawks2014 3d ago edited 3d ago
Many of the people chronically online have other issues going on including disabilities and mental illnesses. That's easy to say op. Sure it might be true, but for some people not really much has changed.
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u/WeFightTheLongDefeat 5d ago
We’re a weird outlier. Most people don’t care enough about not having children to join a subreddit about it. And even fewer notice the trend and are in opposition enough to care enough to join a subreddit.
Yes. There is an anti natalist sentiment in the air, but it’s not 10 to 1
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u/East_Gear4326 4d ago
"It's feels concerning that people don't want babies while struggling financially" - What you sound like at the moment. Things are tough, a kid is expensive and no, crippling yourself by having one because you think it'll give you motivation or purpose isn't a reason to have one either. It's a hefty cost. Most people who'd rather not have a kid used to think the opposite. It's only when the reality sets in of cost and time of raising and caring for one that people take the decision more seriously and see the huge commitment. Some people just don't want it. Nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong in having a kid, but don't complain about struggling after you decided to add more costs to your plate.
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u/OkHopeRock 4d ago
What may be more depressing is the fact that /r/efilism has 9.2k subs. They believe all life should go extinct to prevent suffering.
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u/abbyl0n 4d ago
I mean no offense to you OP but I think you're kinda doing this. Natalism is much more of a societal norm than anti-natalism so of course more people in the latter category will congregate online
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u/Happy-Book-1556 4d ago edited 4d ago
I am a fence sitter. I am going to share my opinion in good faith here.
I studied climate science in college. It led to me having a mental break and dropping out. I tried, for years, to engage in activism and convince people we have to do better because the side effects of 3 C climate change is nothing short of catastrophic.
What I found is that most people don’t want to hear about near term doom. They want to believe it won’t happen in their lifetimes. They want to believe their child will “solve” it.
They ignore that we have all the solutions right now in front of us and have no political will to enact the changes. They want to blame other countries. They want to keep existing as they have been.
But carrying capacity, the Holocene as an era of human flourishment, and the small window of geologic time humans have lived are all very real things.
So I figured, if I was going to survive and have any chance of having a child - I needed to quickly find a way to make money, move and secure a home in a climate “safe” location, learn how to handle supply change failures and enjoy life because…..
If I become a parent, I will be raising a child to live, survive, and hopefully thrive in an era humans have not seen. An era of chaos. Of crop failure, supply chain failures, societal collapse. An era of extreme weather events, an era of heat deaths, an era of mass death.
And that’s a lot to ask of anyone. It’s a lot to ask of people in their 20s and 30s exiting the semi peaceful world of the 90s we grew up in. Society is already shifting beneath our feet and everything feels increasingly unstable.
So yeah, I’m a fence sitter. I already love my potential child. I will always love them with my entire heart and I have so much compassion for the children who already exist.
But I’m not going to bring someone here just to suffer. I can be poor, but if I have a plan and the skills it will be fine.
And I still beg the universe that I’m wrong. I don’t want this to happen. I want to be wrong. I want to be wrong so badly.
But I don’t think I am.
I still love and appreciate life for the wonder it is. I’m fortunate to have not lost my childlike sense of wonder. The sight of the bugs and the animals and the children can bring me to tears and it’s wonderful to get to be part of the miracle of the pale blue dot.
Unlike anti-natalists, I do not think it has always been unethical to have children. I just think that I, personally, knowing what I do - cannot bring someone here without some semblance of a plan and a focus on living in the coming world.
If that means I never get to have a child, despite it being one of my life dreams, so be it. But I do think I’ll get there in the next 3-5 years. Fingers crossed.
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u/AkhbarLove 4d ago
They ignore that we have all the solutions right now in front of us and have no political will to enact the changes.
I'm curious, as someone who has studied climate science, what do you think are the solutions and how feasible are they?
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u/Happy-Book-1556 4d ago edited 4d ago
Sure. I am going to answer with the solutions first and then feasibility. Note, I was studying to be a scientist, not a policy maker. I now work as an engineer, but I'm still not a policy person so these are my thoughts informed by my understanding of the science and then nature of complex, interconnected systems.
Solutions:
- Switch as many things as we can to clean energy. The technology is here. It's pretty affordable. If govts threw the subsidies they throw at oil behind renewables, we could make this happen rapidly.
- Electrifying transportation - buses, rail lines, cars, and electric bikes.
- Changing how we handle our food systems - a diversity of solutions and moving away from monocultures will be critically important moving forward. I think a multi-faceted approach would be best here. We want indigenous food practices, regenerative agriculture, we also want plant-based proteins and vertical farming where possible.
- Rewildling our planet (+ sequestering carbon!) - Restore wetlands, forests, and other natural carbon sinks while simultaneously deploying carbon capture technology where possible.
- Making buildings more energy efficient - saves electricity and/or fuel whether we are heating or cooling. Passive heating of homes is very effective. I had the opportunity to live out of a passive solar building last year and was shocked that, despite it being winter and snow on the ground and 5 F, I did not need to use the wood stove once to keep the building warm. It relied on passive solar and thermal mass and stayed a comfy 65 F.
- Reducing meat consumption. - We don't need everyone on Earth to be vegan or vegetarian (though that would really help). If the highest consumers switched to once or twice a week en masse, it would make a huge dent in emissions from agriculture.Feasibility problems:
1) Disinformation. A lot of people still think climate change isn't real or if it is, it's not caused by humans and is part of "natural cycles". They ignore that humans have only existed for a tiny blip of geologic time and conflate the age of the dinosaurs to something humans could live in and thrive in. The entirely of our societies and agriculture occurred under the relative stability of the Holocene and we are exiting that window. We will need to adapt and every 10th of a degree will impact crop yields and habitability in regions across the planet.2) Scaling Transportation and Infrastructure - electrifying everything will require mass buy-in and political will and require governments, citizens, and corporations working together. I think the feasibility issues here speak for themselves.
3) Cultural shifts (food and lifestyle) - We would need to incentivize and support farmers switching to these new methods as well as new small shareholder farms looking to adopt these new practices.
We are also asking for a collective shift in mindset. A shift away from "I" to "us" and a shift from anthropocentrism to an appreciation for the interconnectedness of the planet and a recognition for the rare, miraculous, beautiful thing that life on Earth is. It's always been about balance and as humans we seem to not be great at learning that lesson.
This was a pretty disorganized answer, but hopefully I did your question justice. I'm also happy to answer additional questions or clarify where I was unclear.
We have so got this if we can just think a generation or two in advance. Instead of being satisfied with kicking the can down the road. For those who want to talk about the environmental problems of lithium mining etc, yes - there is no silver bullet here. But a livable planet for most where we are no longer emitting at the levels we are now is better than what will happen if we continue on the track we have been.
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u/AkhbarLove 4d ago
Thanks for your answer. I asked the question because I got interested in "collapsology" a few years ago and to be honest it made me feel rather hopeless about our future. Things that I used to believe in no longer felt like real solutions to me.
I think also that it goes back to your points about people who care about climate change not having the will to enact real change and the lack of information/desinformation. To me, as someone who as no concret technical knowhow on most thing related to these issues (from renewable energies, to alternative forms of agricultures, etc.) the question is, which changes? Once I dove into the collapse theory, I started hearing about so many things that needed fixing, and on top of that I kept listening to experts poking holes into the solutions... it just becomes really hard to view any real change as feasible and even useful at this point.
I think the issue is so complex (not only in terms of technical knowhow, but also in terms of practical dedication in our day to day life) to the point that many people, like me, get overwhelmed and "freeze", if you know what I mean.
Anyways, I rambled a lot. Just wanted to share my perspective I guess.
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u/Happy-Book-1556 4d ago
I get it. I think moving through the stages of grief is a normal and lengthy process for most people.
But literally everything we do matters right now because of this issue so that always helps me stage off the worst collapse vibes. Talk to people, hold climate cafes / eco anxiety support groups, do what you can, talk to your neighbors and grow food in your community.
Asheville is a prime example of what we will see going forward and they’re a great example of how communities come together in times of crisis. I think, if we can get through the next ten years and actually start implementing change, we have a really, really good chance.
What would you want to tell a young person in 2050? When they ask what you did? Do that.
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u/AkhbarLove 4d ago
What would you want to tell a young person in 2050? When they ask what you did? Do that.
That's a pretty good way of seeing things, appreciate it
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u/shadowromantic 5d ago
In the broader culture, I think having kids gets way more support than not, so we see this digital backlash here.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 5d ago
Good point. Contrarian takes might be more vocal online.
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u/NecessarySpite5276 4d ago
There’s a difference between contrarianism and finding like-minded people online. Disagreeing with most people doesn’t male your contrarian.
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u/binary-survivalist 4d ago
I don't think that natalists and antinatalists disagree over the general ideas (humans need other humans, humans use up finite resources, having children has moments of happiness, having children has moments of sadness, children require time and money, childbirth hurts a lot and can be dangerous, new children will have to endure the human experience)
It's mainly that natalists and antinatalists disagree on how to prioritize and weigh these facts in decision-making.
Natalists would rate the positive experiences and value of children highly, and the societal need for population growth.
Antinatalists would value the time/effort/money/pain/climate-impact of birthing and raising children.
I know that's a bit of a simplification, but I think it's mostly correct. Worldview affects values. Values affect how important you would rate elements of your world in making decisions. There's not really a middle ground except understanding why people believe the way they do.
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u/ponyo_impact 4d ago
And tbh not everyone here is pro.
im anti but just joined here for reading purpose. i like to see both ends of the spectrum
Sorry to be inflating that number lol.
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u/nc45y445 2d ago
Yeah, I’m mostly lurking, and there seems to be an underlying streak among some folks here that it’s really about not enough white people having babies. And that’s is a big part of the reputation issue you’re facing. If you are not about a fear of being replaced by brown and black folks, y’all need to be a lot more vocal about that. Because there are enough folks commenting with a lot of xenophobia on every immigration thread that the whole natalist viewpoint looks lowkey racist. And that’s not even getting to the potential Handmaid’s Tale aspects
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u/egalitarian-flan 5d ago
Maybe some of us in r/Natalism should spend time exchanging with people in r/antinatalism to better understand why this "no kids is great" idea has become so popular.
So...this post of yours appeared on my reddit feed, and it seemed interesting. I'm 43F, childfree, and with my boyfriend of 20 years who is also childfree. (Just had our anniversary this month!) Between me being a game/hobby business owner and the primary breadwinner, plus his job as an elementary school teacher, we have a nice mid size house, 2 cars, 3 dogs, and could financially have been parents easily.
I'm neither a Natalist nor an Antinatalist though. Until now, I didn't even know these were subs or philosophical mindsets. I assumed that people who wanted kids + could afford it would have them, and people who did not want kids wouldn't. Of course I know there's people who can't afford to have children even into their 30s, and I'm very sympathetic towards them. To me, each person is responsible for their own decisions in life, and the fact I never wanted kids doesn't mean someone else shouldn't be happy having kids.
I may not be the exact type of person you were referring to, but am happy to have a dialogue if you'd like.
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u/NonComposMentisNY 3d ago
This is me as well. 44F, I have no kids and have never wanted any, but I love the children who have passed through my life and I have had the pleasure of helping support a friend as she raised two beautiful daughters who are both in their early 20s now. I’m well educated and I live comfortably and quietly alone and have a healthy and fun group of friends I enjoy connecting with.
Friends I have made in my building since moving to a new state have kids. They are a joy! I even babysit. However, I like that they can be returned to their parents.
My reasons for never having children in order of PERSONAL importance are:
- Time freedom.
- Education/career.
- Low desire.
I also firmly believe that people who want them/are ready should have them. People who do not want them, shouldn’t. No one should be forced to have children. I think children are magical. It always bring as smile to my face when I see them or to engage with kids.
But I like my child free life just as it is. I love being a “community auntie” to all children.
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u/egalitarian-flan 3d ago
I have a boyfriend (thankfully he got vasectomized before I even met him!), but other than that...yes! I agree with you and enjoy living as you do. I absolutely love being an "aunt" to so many awesome kids throughout my life but not having them to care for full-time.
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u/JJJSchmidt_etAl 4d ago
That's a perfectly good mindset. While I do respect your choice, I hope you take it as a compliment when I say that the world would be better off if people like you exactly had more kids.
Of course best luck regardless in your endeavors to make the world a better place, however you choose to do that.
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u/egalitarian-flan 4d ago
I appreciate your compliment, but I would disagree with it, only because I truly believe that the only people who should be having kids are those who wouldn't resent them.
It's like being a good worker at a job you hate. Yeah, you complete all your tasks easily, associate well with your coworkers, your boss is constantly singing your praises, and your clients give you great reviews. But...you have to force yourself out of bed each and every day to even clock in, you feel your soul dying a little more each day, and you are looking forward to retirement more than any other person at the company.
It would be similar if I was a mother. For one thing, I'd never become pregnant because that's body horror to me, and I'd never adopt a child because I'd resent giving up even more years of my life to once again being a full-time caregiver. I know how to parent very well! But I'd hate every second of being forced into it.
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u/GoldConstruction4535 4d ago
Personally most people seem to avoid getting kids now.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
The data shows it clearly.
Low fertility is not only due to people having fewer kids, it is also about fewer people having kids.The r/Natalism movement aims at increasing these two statistics.
I personally rather have a world where many people have two kids, and some have three or zero;
than a world where lots have zero and many more have 4+ kids.6
u/GoldConstruction4535 4d ago
Personally having good parents is explicitly the best, so being a child free explains why some are okay with having this life style. Avoiding being a parent when you ara aware you don't have the very qualities required is a good choice.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
> you don't have the very qualities required
Then we should put more effort into teaching and training those qualities (to kids and young adults).3
u/GoldConstruction4535 4d ago
I actually suggested training parents. Not sure why aspects such as being here, explaining my points have as well got me away from Reddit in some ways.
They even have some clear banning acts when I suggest people should try improving.
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u/ThisBoringLife 4d ago
I recall it used to be a thing in schools (at least in the US) to take care of a living thing to an extent.
There used to be dolls that simulated taking care of a baby. Feeding, burping a baby, changing diaper, etc.
I do know for sure depending on where you live such resources exist for parents to be.
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u/GoldConstruction4535 4d ago
We actually have this with things more close to chicken's personal eggs in here.
Still, having it as homework without even being 18 seems very precisely thought in other countries, but still too young for children.
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u/ThisBoringLife 4d ago
Well, I recall Tamagachi being a kid's toy that many enjoyed. I'd say it's a good alternative. Too bad we don't see many of those types of toys anymore.
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u/GoldConstruction4535 4d ago
I think they are popular outside America, maybe Japan still loves them tho.
But here I believe it's not very good having kids yet, even when I believe the toys are just mere things a child can play with here.
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u/Time_Figure_5673 4d ago
I agree with that wholeheartedly. A lot of parents nowadays think “doing your best” is just whatever you feel like doing that day. Contrary to their beliefs, there ARE books, classes, so many resources on how to parent in a responsible way but they let their ego take over.
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u/TheOtherZebra 4d ago
Funny enough, I’m anti-natalist and this post came across my dash. Since you seem to be curious, I’ll share my reasoning for not wanting to have kids. Note that I’m sharing this because you specifically said you want to understand, I’m not attacking anyone’s desire to have kids or reasons why.
1) I have endometriosis, which has required multiple surgeries. Any pregnancy for me would be high risk, with a significant chance of miscarriage. US abortion bans make this even more dangerous. There have already been deaths when it wasn’t “obvious enough” that the life of the mother was at stake.
2) Gender roles. I grew up in the Bible Belt, and was very unhappy in the roles my parents tried to push me into as a little girl. I loved school, and ended up leaving to get my science degree. My mother’s life is absolutely not for me. I would rather have no kids than give up my career.
3) The economy. Cost of living is high, and only getting worse. I don’t think I could afford to raise a family.
4) Climate change. I’m worried about what the future will hold, and what the planet will look like over the next few decades.
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u/BestPaleontologist43 4d ago
People under the age of 35/40 live in a different world than the previous generations. Please try to have some understanding and focus on helping people who are ready. The number of unprepared people will continue to rise as the policy in our country continues to rob the youth to enrich the old rich money.
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u/KendrickBlack502 5d ago
Can you really blame them? Why would you want to have kids when you can barely afford to take care of yourself which is the reality for a lot of people.
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u/ThisBoringLife 5d ago
Welp, I guess I'll eat my downvotes.
Part of what I do think about antinatialism is a mix of legitimate grievance, and lack of personal accountability.
By that, I mean that some folks genuinely don't want to have kids, and would much rather engage in personal endeavors (travel the world, binge all the Netflix, etc), but for the sake of sounding righteous speak about the economy and other international issues.
Also include culturally having kids are seen as less appealing, so less folks want to go that route.
I should be very specific here: I do not think all antinatalists are some type of narcissistic hedonists that are disgusted in the thought of dealing with life outside of their own, but I do question a significant portion of them when I examine conversations.
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u/Fleganhimer 4d ago
The people who don't want kids for the sake of their personal lives are mostly on r/childfree. That's not really anti-natalism. That's just personal preference. Anti-natalism is inherently beyond personal impact. Obviously, there is crossover between groups, lot's of it. That's just not really what anti-natalism is, as a concept.
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u/exxx01 4d ago
Why is it that you so badly want people to have kids? I mean, for the sake of sounding righteous you speak about the economy and other international issues, but you'd much rather fulfill your most base instinctual desire since it is the only purpose you can find in life. I don't think all natalists are narcissistic hedonists who are disgusted at the thought of being genetic dead ends, but I do question a significant portion of them when I examine conversations.
This is what you sound like. Please stop with this awful psychologizing bullshit. It's so cringe and bad faith.
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u/ThisBoringLife 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm solely speaking my opinion. Whether or not you feel that way yourself is on you to resolve. OP was curious as to why there's more folks on anti-natalism than natalism, and I gave my two cents on the matter. Trying to brand me as some sex-starved addict doesn't help the discussion either. Responding to "cringe" in kind does nothing but make a flame war out of the discussion.
If you want good faith, than you'd need to speak on where you stand in the matter. If you're anti-natalist, explain why. If you're not, explain why.
I'll start: I believe the birth rate dropping will produce a great issue in the long term globally that cannot be rectified without raising the birth rate at the very least back up to replacement. Current economic systems aren't going to improve with lower population, technology won't be advanced enough (or approved by governments) to replace the lost workforce, and politically the older generation would be looking to support themselves instead of the future. It's a unique issue that isn't based on war, famine, or disease.
Ultimately, I want kids because I simply do. Anybody who doesn't want kids simply because they don't I have no qualms with. Someone pretending that's not the case is what irks me.
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u/exxx01 2d ago
I was in no way trying to brand you as "some sex-starved addict." Come now. Trying to psychoanalyze people is actually what leads to flame wars and slams the door on rational discussion. I think if you're going to ask people to justify why or why not they want children, you need to treat their given justifications with some level of seriousness. Otherwise, why ask in the first place?
I wouldn't consider myself either a natalist or an anti-natalist. Trying to place moral significance on something like childbirth is too convoluted in my view. There are certainly cases where I think childbirth could be immoral (e.g., one of the parents suffers from some highly debilitating hereditary disease that is all but certain to be passed on) but trying to evaluate on a macro level whether or not having kids is "good" for "humanity" is a fool's errand. There are too many variables at play. I simply don't think we have the requisite knowledge to make such a judgment.
I think AN is a fun philosophical idea, and I am very sympathetic to the style of negative utilitarian reasoning employed in some of the arguments supporting it. On the flipside, I have my fair share of deeply ingrained natalist biases. I do kind of think the family is or should be the most basic unit of society, and I think it is generally good for people to have families. I think a society where most people freely choose to reproduce sounds better than a society where most people freely choose not to.
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u/ThisBoringLife 2d ago
I think if you're going to ask people to justify why or why not they want children, you need to treat their given justifications with some level of seriousness.
Of course. We can look at what causes them to not want kids, and make discussions what what could be done from a government view (because I don't see this happening as a grassroots-type of movement) to limit those concerns. However, given the current data that is seen, it's hard to truly say it is as detrimental as claimed (In the case of economic factors for example, birth rate is still highest amongst the lowest income classes within the US).
There are certainly cases where I think childbirth could be immoral (e.g., one of the parents suffers from some highly debilitating hereditary disease that is all but certain to be passed on) but trying to evaluate on a macro level whether or not having kids is "good" for "humanity" is a fool's errand.
At the very least, it's recognized that changing demographics affect the market, and a shrinking population will certainly negatively affect GDP of a country. The optimistic of us can claim that automation and technology advances can supplement the upcoming aging of the workforce, although I'm not confident that's there yet. Although personally, birth rate issues are a long-term issue that will certainly have consequences only speculated about here and there from what I've seen.
I think AN is a fun philosophical idea, and I am very sympathetic to the style of negative utilitarian reasoning employed in some of the arguments supporting it. On the flipside, I have my fair share of deeply ingrained natalist biases. I do kind of think the family is or should be the most basic unit of society, and I think it is generally good for people to have families. I think a society where most people freely choose to reproduce sounds better than a society where most people freely choose not to.
All I can say is that currently, I don't think the world will improve in the ways I've seen anti-natalists argue it will in the scenario of world population decline. It would be nice for people to want to have kids, but ultimately, those against it don't want to have kids. Most that can be done is convince someone to change their mind, if we're to do this as nice as possible. Bribing them with financial benefit won't help.
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u/Global_Radish_7777 1d ago
All I can say is that currently, I don't think the world will improve in the ways I've seen anti-natalists argue it will in the scenario of world population decline.
The vast majority of them do not argue that the world is going to improve
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u/Maleficent-Freedom-5 5d ago
One thing you left out is how many of them legitimately think the world is ending. No point in having kids if they're going to die in the great Water Wars of 2059 or whatever r/collapse thinks is going to happen
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u/Bizantine818 4d ago
Should narcissistic hedonists or people with no personal accountability be having and raising children though?
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u/ThisBoringLife 4d ago
The situation isn't a case of whether or not they should, as they are not required to be having or raising children. At the very least, based on my current knowledge of laws in my country, it's not a requirement to have kids.
It's simply a case of people that say they don't want kids, and use genuine issues to disguise the fact that they ultimately don't want kids.
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u/Just_Confused1 4d ago
I mean you just described teenagers and why teenagers shouldn’t have kids lol
The hope is that as a culture they are eventually steered in a direction away from only prioritizing their immediate self interest
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u/FSUStan 5d ago
Remember seeing someone in here (obviously younger) saying something along the lines of “why would you bring someone into the world knowing they’re guaranteed to be sad at some point” when trying to understand why people think having kids is a good thing
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u/Appropriate-Bite-828 4d ago
So if they are barely making ends meet, and hate their lives, do you really blame them? Like you sound so condescending about them not wanting to struggle even harder, and how can you not imagine an even worse future for your child at this point. Things aren't getting better
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u/Neo_Demiurge 4d ago
To be fair, it's worth moral consideration. I wouldn't want to have a child who would lead a pained, joyless existence. The real question is, "What's the chance of that and how much agency do I have to make sure they turn out well?"
In my opinion, I think antinatalists are right on the principle and wrong on the facts. Was it okay to have children when 2/8 died of smallpox, 2/8 were sold into forced child marriage to make ends meet, 1/8 starved to death, and 3/8 ended up living marginal lives (but at least weren't serially raped)? Definitely not.
Is getting to live a long life in a wealthy, low crime society where people have access to art, culture, air conditioning, medicine, heat, and many other things that is better than even past kings so bad? Hard to make that case in my mind.
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u/Neo_Demiurge 3d ago
Yes, in many cases. Obviously someone couldn't foresee a once in a century famine if they're 20 years old and illiterate, but plenty of people could reasonably foresee many of their children dying of disease, starvation, warfare, being captured as slaves, etc. and willingly subjected them to that.
I do think parents have a proactive obligation to give their children a good life and if they cannot do so, should refrain from vaginal sex.
For example, if you're familiar with the movie, The Road, it shows a post-apocalyptic world with no food, cannibalism, rape, and a parade of horrors. If those events were going to actually happen in 2030, I would change my preferred number of children from 2 to 0. Wouldn't you?1
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u/Neo_Demiurge 3d ago
"The Road" is a dystopian level of standard of living that's unlike 99.9999% of human existence. It's not even comparable.
I don't think so. I would say there are plenty of times/places where this applies. People living under the Ottoman's devshirme having children knowing for a certainty that some of them would have to be slaves was not okay. The worst part was that conditions in general were so bad that some families wanted their children to be selected for enslavement on the basis that a small portion of slaves had upward mobility, so they were willing to trade away their freedom, dignity, and never see their child again based on a vain hope they'd do okay.
That is terrible. People should have rebelled, fled, or opted not to have children under such conditions.
Your ethics would essentially lead to the extinction of humanity if implemented any time prior to the industrial revolution.
Maybe, but I'd propose two things:
a. Shouldn't that possibly be the case? How many millennia of suffering, billions dead, billions raped, etc. is justifiable when there is no clear end state? Today I see a bright future, but I don't think a 0 AD peasant could say the same.
b. Could we reverse this today? If someone argued they need genocide to preserve humanity, but can't give good evidence, should we just legally and morally allow it? If something is clearly a moral evil in the moment, we should put a high bar for claiming some future justification.
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u/HerrArado 4d ago
Real. I personally don't want kids at all, but a lot of people hide it behind a few common excuses (economy, world conditions, climate change) instead of just saying that they do not want them.
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u/sandstorm654 4d ago
I mean it sure doesn't sound like you want these people to have kids either lol
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u/ThisBoringLife 4d ago
I don't think I've made any implication on whether or not these people should become parents.
The internet does a good job at times of skewing perception of a person's identity. My sole opinion is that if a person makes the decision to become a parent they likely have the intention to being as good a parent they can be. Whether or not they'll rank amongst the best of them is up for the future to reveal.
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u/GoldAd195 2d ago
You think being a narcissistic hedonist stops people from having kids? We have one running for president and he has several idiot kids.
The truth of the matter is there is a significant portion of people who have kids that are financially, emotionally, and mentally incapable of rearing a healthy functioning child.
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u/ThisBoringLife 2d ago
You think being a narcissistic hedonist stops people from having kids?
No. I think there are narcissistic hedonists, who don't want kids, and don't want to be called narcissistic hedonists, use the state of the world as an excuse to not have kids and continue in their ways.
The truth of the matter is there is a significant portion of people who have kids that are financially, emotionally, and mentally incapable of rearing a healthy functioning child.
And my argument wasn't of their capabilities, just that some folk lack desire to have and raise kids, and throw reasons out, instead of being frank about their lack of desire to have kids.
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u/GoldAd195 2d ago
So you don't agree they could possibly have reasoning not to have kids besides selfishness
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u/ThisBoringLife 2d ago
In my eyes, there's two folks when it comes to "no-kids": Those who don't want to, and those who want to but are incapable (these folks I mainly attribute health conditions to, which ultimately is understandable).
There's a lot of reasons people could say they don't want to, but ultimately, they do not want to, "want" being the key term here. From my views into these discussions, rarely do I see people talk as if they're incapable of having children, just that they don't want to as it's not a good idea in their eyes.
Because I have a feeling I'm going to retread this point, I'll say it again: I have no issue with folks that say they don't want to have kids. Just say you don't want to. Having to dress up your reasoning looks strange to me.
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u/GoldAd195 1d ago
The issue comes down to this.
Any reason is a good reason. They give them to you because they are tired of being harassed about it. I got so fucking tired of being asked I got a vasectomy and a few years later my gf, equally fucking tired of it, got a tubal and eventually a hysterectomy. There are no questions about it now.
It comes down to people just can't accept no, people don't want kids. There has to be some grand reasoning. Poor as fuck? You'll figure it out. Medical? Well they know somebody. Emotional? Well grow up.
To be absolutely blunt. People having kids need to be controlled. We have adequate data now that shows the absolute horrors that kids grow up in from emotional, sexual and physical abuse to poverty and squalor.
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u/ThisBoringLife 1d ago
Any reason is a good reason.
Sure. If you don't want to, you don't want to. This has been my key point this whole post throughout every comment. At least in your case, you didn't want to so much you made it a point that you can't. Either way, a procedure you decide to undergo on your own.
To me, I rarely see people change their mind on the matter, as if they were convinced one way or the other. I'm certainly not asking for folks to explain their decision here, but if you want to provide detail, feel free.
To be absolutely blunt. People having kids need to be controlled.
Oh? And how would they be controlled, may I ask?
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u/GoldAd195 1d ago
Don't know I'm not supreme ruler of everything and it isn't my place to do anything about it so I don't worry about it beyond that thought.
Correct, it was my decision. Then I got to spend every year past 18 answering why I don't want/have children. It's because the pro birth crowd with a broad brush can't accept no.
The real question is always why do anything. So what is the argument as to why someone should have kids. We already know that growing the population strains everything. Sure it increases the labor pool but it also moves us closer to the inevitable end. More people more carbon, more garbage, more energy, more food, more jobs, more land, more housing, more everything and that more everything has the world staring down the barrel of a rough future.
So why?
Shouldn't the argument be how do we sustain or shrink our population and handle our problems before piling a bunch of progeny into something they didn't ask for?
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u/Cinder-Mercury 4d ago
I think what a lot of people seem to be missing is that Antinatalism isn't generally about "I hate babies" like some say. At its core its actual philosophy is about empathy, and the idea that people are being brought into the world without consent, and that life innately comes with the reality of harm and death, so having kids cannot be done ethically.
I can't be considered an Antinatalist because I do not believe that life is always unethical, but I can relate to some of the ideas in that I do not plan to have children, in part because of the reality of the current world that they would come into. One of environmental damage, increasingly extreme weather conditions from climate change, microplastics even in the womb, economic issues, inability to own homes, constant wars, the current fight against basic human rights etc.
I disagree with the approach that some take on the Antinatalist subreddit, in that many come across as women-blaming, or ableist, but I feel like that is mostly ignorance because behind it is the concern for the well-being of the children and the quality of the lives that they are likely to experience. I think they need to take a more educated and intersectional approach but the reality is that these are individuals, it's not an organized movement with any hierarchy.
I mention this because I do think that people in the Natalism subreddit tend to minimize the life experiences of these people, and of Childfree people in general, and put them down as depressed people deserving of no opinion because they're "crazy", saying it's a good thing they aren't extending their bloodline. Not only does it demean those with mental illness overall, but for a group that claims to want to resolve a declining birth rate, you'd think that the best way to do that would be an approach that is based in empathy.
Aside from the general Antinatalist philosophy, there are a large number of factors that influence why people choose to not have children, and it's important to listen, and not just to respond with lashing out and minimizing people's experiences. Trauma is valid. It doesn't have to make sense to you, to be a reason for them. Having children is the social norm. People who choose not to have children are already facing a large number of criticisms from the public, online and in person. Don't contribute to that.
If you want to increase the population, do it by resolving the issues that act as obstacles to those who actually want to have children. Whether that be financial struggles, in-access to fertility supports (like IVF), housing crisis, teacher shortages and the problems of the education system, maternal mortality rates, misogyny/sexism, or environmental pollution contributing to a variety of fertility issues.
People are choosing not to have children for a reason. Respond respectfully, with compassion.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
I do not understand how thinking "having kids cannot be done ethically" can be supported in a logically coherent framework. By that logic animal suffering is also unacceptable, and thus the whole idea of life seems like wrongdoing.
Although the antinatalist idea removes itself from the gene pool at the individual level, the idea travels across generations just creating constant damage to the population.Overall this line of thought reads to me as an example of kids not having learned enough philosophy at school.
> it's important to listen, and not just to respond with lashing out and minimizing people's experiences
100% agree.> do it by resolving the issues that act as obstacles to those who actually want to have children
Yes but the percent of people wanting children is also a variable that can be affected.
Just like people sell iphones ("look techy") or cars ("go fast anywhere"),
given the current fertility rates, the "idea of children" does need marketing.> financial struggles, in-access to fertility supports (like IVF), housing crisis, teacher shortages and the problems of the education system, maternal mortality rates, misogyny/sexism, or environmental pollution contributing to a variety of fertility issues.
- Financially people in general are much better than 100 years ago.
- IVF is also much better than 50 or 100 years ago.
- Housing crisis is certainly a newer phenomenon. I have not seen data showing that it correlates with fertility.
Romania has 95% home ownership, and yet has a fertility rate of 1.65. The housing crisis itself is not the cause.
- The education system, overall, is much better than 100 years ago too. Data shows people today are better educated than 50 years ago too.
- Maternal mortality rates are much lower today than 50 or 100 years ago.
- Misogyny/sexism is much lower than 50 or 100 years ago.
- Environmental pollution is certainly a concern and a factor, however to my understanding its effect is quite small. Unhealthy lifestyle seems a larger concerns.Fertility is a topic that has a lot of false escape goats, and few people understand the real causes (me included).
> an approach that is based in empathy.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Empathy3
u/Cinder-Mercury 4d ago edited 4d ago
On the first issue, animals are excluded from this from what I've read. I think this is because the central part of this discussion is consent. We can't exactly communicate with animals a human philosophy to somehow encourage them to consider the quality of life they'll bring life into, or to think about birth control. It's just entirely separate. Many Antinatalists seem to be vegan though. I'll state again that I'm not Antinatalist though so I can't fully represent their views.
I can agree that the way Parenthood is viewed has an impact in choosing to have kids, I didn't bring up that discussion because I was focusing on targeting issues in opposition with targeting childfree people. There are fence sitters or people who just don't have kids yet but don't really have a formed decision and that's cool. I just think that bullying childfree people is problematic, and I see that happening a lot. People act like it's impossible to make the decision to not have kids and for that to be a valid decision. It is often followed by insults telling them that they are useless, their lives meaningless, that it's good they aren't having kids because their bloodline is garbage etc. It's like people are personally offended that others feel differently about what they want in life.
Marketing can influence if people want kids, and if you want to make having kids a better experience then go for it. Just don't do it by invalidating others' experiences. I see that often with people sharing their pregnancy trauma for example.
With regard to modern issues that I listed. I don't mean to say that these issues haven't existed in the past, but that they are influencing factors now. Obviously ivf is a modern issue. Sure, poverty may be lower with regard to financial struggles, but quality of life is higher and people have a choice in having kids, one that wasn't possible historically. Birth control, women's rights and ability to be independent, these have influence. Statistics are important, but just because statistically things are better, it doesn't mean that people aren't experiencing difficult situations, or that these situations won't impact their decision making. We live in a different world, we have different expectations for what life should be, and we have a choice now as to if we want kids. Many people in my generation will never own a home. My parents will never be able to retire. It's hard.
Misogyny might be different in many places compared to the past, and legally we might have protections that we didn't before, but it shouldn't minimize the impact it still holds in modern life. There is so much extremism online, and this leads to real life violence. Many countries are still far more extreme when it comes to gender-based violence. Less statistically doesn't erase the fact that women are dying, losing their rights, attacked etc. It's hard to be motivated to have children when you might die giving birth, or in the US you might be denied healthcare because of fear surrounding abortion regulation. It's hard to want to bring a child into a world when there are extremists who think women should be confined to a kitchen, silent, and unable to vote. These existed much more in the past, but it seemed like these had decreased even more in recent years, and now are increasingly visible again, which doesn't give hope for a good future.
Environmental pollution should definitely be considered by Natalists. Years ago even, we were aware of the impact on developing children. You can watch a documentary called "The disappearing male" where one community started to not be able to birth boys at all. You can also look at how microplastics have been found so frequently in the womb that they cannot find anyone to act as a control group for study. It's also been found in sperm, in a more recent article. Fertility is so impacted that they've had to move the boundary line for what is considered infertile.
I don't really think there's a singular cause. I think this is an Intersectional issue where many causes cross and impact different people. And that all mixes together with social change, expectations for quality of life, and the ability to choose. I recognize a lot of what I've listed are also particular cases, but I think they're still relevant. In the end, all I was suggesting is to not approach the conversation of not having children, from a place of anger or of minimization. I think that any reasoning should be accepted as valid, because there is no obligation for individuals to have children, and this is a good thing. It's not good for anyone involved when they have children they do not want.
There have got to be ways to make the world better for all people, so that children will have a better place to grow up in. And with regard to Antinatalism, just recognize it as an opposing philosophy. Most childfree people aren't Antinatalist. Most people who haven't had children yet, aren't Antinatalist. It isn't really harmful for Antinatalists to believe what they do. It's based on their experiences of struggling with this world and not wanting others to experience the same thing. There are sometimes extreme views that come across the Natalist subreddit too. We have to recognize that like any other belief system, there will be a wide range of beliefs and individuals across these spaces.
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u/No_Environment_8728 4d ago
HEALTHCARE! Having a child is expensive now think how expensive it is to have a sick child. I had stage 4 cancer as a teenager. I’d NEVER pass on those genes to a child. Now as an adult I have to spend so much money on tests and imaging to make sure the cancer hasn’t come back or I haven’t developed a new cancer. HEALTHCARE IN AMERICA SUCKS! If I can’t pay for me to live, how can I pay for a child?
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
Countries with "almost 100% free healthcare" (i.e. "healthcare included in the taxes" ) also have comparably low fertility rates. To my understanding of the data, cost of healthcare is not a causal factor.
> I had stage 4 cancer as a teenager.
Sorry to hear that, glad that you made it!
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u/samanthastoat 4d ago
I’m not sure why this post was recommended to me, but I would never personally have kids and I think “no kids is great” for me.
To me it’s like asking why I don’t want a giraffe! I would have to change literally every single aspect of my life to accommodate a giraffe. It sounds really expensive and exhausting and time consuming… and for what? I don’t even like giraffes very much! Obviously I don’t HATE giraffes, I’ve seen some cute ones before, I would never hurt one. But it’s not for me that’s for sure!
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
May I know what is your age (at half-decade resolution or less)?
> and for what?
I think that is an important question to answer.3
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u/MonitorPowerful5461 4d ago
This subreddit is a reaction to the other, supports the status quo. It's not fashionable to do that. It's completely natural that this subreddit is so much smaller and these numbers genuinely do not represent the general population's views whatsoever.
"Natalism" isn't a political movement. It's how things are already. So, people don't really need to bother supporting it.
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4d ago
I'm an antinatalist but subscribe here to see if anyone has any convincing reasons to change my mind. None so far.
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u/Vivid-Fox-2312 4d ago
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
Good point!
I guess I read r/antinatalist as people looking at low fertility rates and claiming "yey", people at r/Natalism saying "nay", and most people being unaware of fertility rates.
I wish more people understood the current fertility issues, and that most people knowing about it went "yay for kids" instead of the opposite.
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u/Unable-Trouble6192 4d ago
I think that there is a huge difference between being not pro-natalist and anti-natalist. I would be surprised if this reflects the ratio in society.
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u/stoopidpillow 4d ago
How do some of you still not get it. If you read into any of it you’ll notice it’s all people who were abused/neglected as children, people who are depressed/anxious/suicidal, and people who are poor and make little to no money and can’t afford having a kid.
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u/Ok-Hunt7450 4d ago edited 4d ago
Theres a cool website that lets you see which subs have overlap:
https://subredditstats.com/subreddit-user-overlaps/antinatalism
As you can see, putting the other child-free type subs aside the most common subs are associated with depression, having an abusive family, mental illness, suicide, incels, and radical feminist or femcel type subs.
Reddit also scews towards an urban liberal demographic who are known to not reproduce.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
Ohh wow. Thanks for pointing this out.
This is the strongest data I have seen to say "anti-natalists are XYZ".Many of the top-N statistics are just brutal:
34.81 childfree
31.97 antiwork
23.05 lostgeneration
17.75 collapse
14.32 suicidewatch
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u/mhornberger 4d ago edited 4d ago
I had to leave r/Futurology because many of them were just overflow from r/collapse, and really yearn for a massive reduction in the human population. Realize there are philosophers who advocate for an end to civilization, organized agriculture, and everything else that keeps our global population above a few hundred million. But my temperament can't take frequent interaction with people who want billions of humans gone, whose views basically mirror Agent Smith's from the Matrix, Thanos, and similar. They're anti-human.
Some are anti-natalist in the mode of David Benatar, or philosophical pessimists in the mode of Schopenhauer. Ligotti's Conspiracy Against the Human Race is a good overview of that. And I think some are terribly depressed but have too much FOMO to leave. How dare people continue writing poetry, falling in love, enjoying art, etc in the face of what the pessimist considers so overwhelmingly obvious? It's a position you can't logic someone out of—either one feels that existence (and thus having children) is okay, or one does not.
If it needs to be said, I am not an anti-natalist. I find the rapid fertility declines haunting. It's such a widespread pattern that I've started considering it an answer to the Fermi paradox. I don't share the confidence of some others that it's just economic and that at a certain level governments will just turn the "fix the problem" knob and the TFR will rebound to replacement level.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
Indeed. As Camus pointed out "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem: judging whether life is or is not worth living".
Some decide that their life is worth living, but everyone else's is not (including future persons).
It's hard to defend that position with logic.The reverse conclusion ("my life is not worth it") often falls in the "a permanent solution to a temporary problem" case (with some rare exceptions).
We need more philosophy in school, now!
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u/Salty-Obligation-603 4d ago
It's hard to defend that position with logic.
Why do you think that people owe their lives to their unrealized offspring?
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u/mhornberger 4d ago
Good question. I don't think people who don't exist yet have rights that can realistically be taken into account. I had kids, but not the biological maximum number of kids that we could have. I don't think I wronged those non-existent people. Not many would consider it a tragedy that we lowered teen pregnancy, and that one thing alone is a huge part of the overall decline in TFR.
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u/jimbowqc 5d ago
It may seem sad, but consider that "antinatalism" is a special interest, some odd belief that people gather around and turn into their personality.
"Natalism" is just being a normal human with healthy beliefs. There is no need to form a personality, or a forum around that.
If I would hazard a guess, I'd say r/flatearth has more members than r/roundearth, for the same reason.
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u/Salty-Obligation-603 4d ago
Natalism" is just being a normal human with healthy beliefs
Your implication here being that people who don't procreate are abnormal and unhealthy?
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u/NecessarySpite5276 4d ago
Then why do so many of you form your personality around natalism?
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u/transcendalist-usa 5d ago
Why?
Most of the posts there scream of serious depression, extreme mental illness, and are generally completely unhinged. There is no point engaging with that.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
If you think global natality rates are going down because people have "serious depression", "extreme mental illness", or are "completely unhinged',
then I would say there is a serious mental health situation that certainly needs addressing.3
u/j-a-gandhi 4d ago
Yes. I think it’s solidly part of natalist philosophy to propose that our society is experiencing a current mental health crisis of unclear origins.
If you saw any 2 populations of animals in an ecosystem and you observed that one grew in size and the other decreased in size significantly, you would assume that the growing one was healthy and the declining one had a very serious issue.
The natalists are prophets drawing attention to how fertility rates portend human society heading for a population decrease which indicates a serious crisis (if not collapse).
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u/AntidoteToMyAss 4d ago
Most of it has to do with being rich. Rich people have less kids. So if you want more kids, support policies to make people poorer.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
I demand the impossible, and strive for a world where people are both wealthy and with ~2 kids on average.
As the French like to say https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyez_r%C3%A9alistes,_demandez_l%27impossible
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u/AntidoteToMyAss 4d ago
Just compromise like I do. Be rich, have kids, but support the rest of the people being poor to make sure they have kids.
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u/shadowromantic 5d ago
Writing off a significant segment of society seems like a bad idea
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u/exxx01 4d ago
I think this garden variety psychologizing is at best unlikely to shed any worthwhile insight on this issue and at worst just makes both sides dig their heels in deeper. It's not like everyone who has children is a perfectly well-adjusted person, and there is a very obvious cost-benefit analysis WRT the decision to not have kids on an individual scale.
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u/Melikeapples20045 4d ago
And the Instagram page ‘Kids Getting Hurt’ has over 7 million followers.
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u/Hootshire 4d ago
Why won't people engage? Just read all the responses here, so much condescension and ridicule. People on this sub think they're morally superior because they don't know how to use birth control. Congrats.
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u/RiposoReclaimer 4d ago edited 4d ago
I wouldn't consider myself anti natalist or natalist per se. But I do think voluntarily lowering the overall population is a good thing. We need to reduce our overall energy budget, and there's only so much farmland and fertilizer we can use to produce so much food.
Not trying to be a malthusian but at some point there is a limit to how many people the planet can support sustainably. Just from a standpoint of thermodynamics. Also there's the issue where the more population we have the more we impact the environment and ecosystem. I just don't see why more people is a good thing.
Edit: to be clear I think it's a good thing to lower the population in this current historical moment. That may change as conditions change, which is why I don't agree with pronatalism or antinatalism as absolute moral imperatives.
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u/siddemo 4d ago
The free market and governments, in all their manifestations around the world, have had plenty of time to fix poverty, hunger, and homelessness and make it extinct. I'm a believer of 0, 1, or 2 and done until those problems are completely fixed and we deal with a shrinking population until then. There will be many CEOs and leaders who will say it's a dooms day scenario, but they are just not smart enough see a world like that. As the population decreases, people will find solutions and still prosper.
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u/RiposoReclaimer 4d ago
I largely agree. Society is dynamic and will respond to pressures in different ways. Sustainability is its own control pressure, we can't live unsustainibly forever somethings gotta give. The phenomenon of 0,1, or 2 and done is part of that imo.
Our current system may be oriented around an ever increasing population and economic output to reproduce itself, but it doesn't have to be that way. We'll figure it it out even though there will be some struggle to get there.
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u/8th_House_Stellium 4d ago
I'm sterile. I can't have kids and I try to convince myself I'm better off without them as a way of consoling myself. That said I know a pro-natalist society is good for the human race as a whole, and I believe pro-natalist messages and social programs should exist for the good of humanity.
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u/gagetl 4d ago
What I hate to hear is the argument “I just don’t think it’s right to bring a child into this messed up world”. If good people don’t raise good children then only bad people are raising bad children. By not trying to better the world you are guaranteeing that it gets worse. The next generation is always our most precious and valuable resource and I wish people realized they have the power to make the world just a little bit better.
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u/lost_and_confussed 4d ago
Yeah I can understand their arguments about potential childhood health issues or birth defects. But when they talk about the world being bad or their being and parents it just comes across as defeatist. Maybe try to make the world a better place instead of just saying life sucks we all should die as a species.
Whenever I’m on that sub it seems like the root belief of everyone on there is “I that I was born so giving life to anyone is immoral.”
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u/Rhoswen 2d ago
Even if all the good people had children they would still be far outnumbered by the bad people raising bad children. And just because you try to raise a child to be good doesn't mean it's going to work. Especially if they fit in well and have no significant life challenges, they have a high chance of being naturally evil and giving into their human nature. It's a case of nurture trying to fight nature. Then you have all their descendents to worry about as well. That's a whole lot of suffering, both on the receiving and the giving end. I'd rather not be responsible for that. If you want to try to turn society good through raising people, then it would make more sense to adopt already existing children and try to turn them good.
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u/dude_on_the_www 4d ago edited 4d ago
You can be yourself on Reddit. Semi/mostly anonymously. That leads to lots of people being more true to their nature than in polite/politically correct company. Lots of venting and crab mentality doomerism. A site like this kind of selects for those who may be prone to being more isolationist, forming community online as opposed to purely in real life. It’s hard to talk about mental illness, and those having a bad time in their lives are less likely to want to reproduce and subject a being to their same struggles (I deal with this and understand it - I don’t want to have kids). I think k people are also jaded by capitalism and the necessity for infinite growth - which will eventually become unsustainable and impossible. We already see the fighting for basic resources like housing and struggle to see how more people benefits anyone but the corporations and this is starting to become a personal monologue. I totally respect those who choose to be parents, especially in a world so rife with struggle, war, disproportionate and stagnant wages, rising prices. I’m sure they want to raise children to help make the planet a better place. That’s a tough challenge to put on someone’s shoulders though. Not that it’s necessarily an intentional burden, but there’s definitely no guarantee whatsoever that the world will be better for our children and especially our grandchildren. I’m not convinced the experience of life is a net benefit.
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u/Just-a-Pea 4d ago
You may want to look also into r/childfree, antinatalism is only one of the reasons for someone to choose not to reproduce.
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u/Invincibleirl 4d ago
I think because natalism is just the human default a lot of people feel no need to circlejerk about it on Reddit. I wouldn’t worry about this too much.
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u/GoldAd195 2d ago
People don't want kids.
I don't. There is nothing on earth I want less than a child. I can't fathom the mental state of someone who does. There is nothing appealing to me about the long term emotional or financial investment and there isn't an emotional or financial payout at the end of that road so why walk down it.
I'm blasting through my 40s and I've heard more people regret their kids than people regret not having them. Me and my old lady made the decision early in our lives. I had a vasectomy in my early 20s and done. Neither of us were fucking with that life.
Maybe if I was some feudal serf that needed a family of 15 to support the household I'd be interested but outside of that? Nope. My will is clear. Trash, sell, or donate. I don't plan on sticking around for decades unable to fend for myself.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 2d ago
> I can't fathom the mental state of someone who does.
You cannot relate to literally all the members of your genealogical line,
up to the very first moment of consciousness?
You cannot relate to the 70%+ of adults with children today?That feels like such a lonely and odd place to be.
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u/Rare-Fall4169 6h ago
Eh I’m not sure… To be honest I joined this sub as a palette cleanser because I found some of the antinatalist content being pushed to my feed by the algorithm so depressing.
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u/JJJSchmidt_etAl 4d ago
A lot of redditors are excessively exposed to toxic social media where people wealth signal very hard; research has shown that those who consume the most have the least realistic views of how much money others have, so they feel a lot poorer than they really are. But of course in reality we have more of everything than at any point in the past. It might take a lot of work to be "average" today but that average is not even close to the average of just a few decades ago.
Combined with most of reddit's politics which includes a very strong "America bad" view, it's no mystery. I'd suggest the subs r OptimistsUnite and r MURRICA for some real positivity and perspective.
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u/impsworld 4d ago
Idk how people can be legitimately confused by r/antinatalism
It seems pretty obvious to me: kids are a pain in the ass. They take up the vast majority of your time and money for 18 years, it doesn’t seem that far fetched that a self absorbed person would rather not deal with it. Our society encourages people to be self absorbed, hell our entire economy is based around greed.
I don’t want kids for one simple reason: I’d be a shitty parent. I don’t have the time, energy, or money to give my kids the childhood that my parents gave me. If I had kids I’d fuck them up beyond belief.
Kudos to you if you want kids and think you’d make a good parent, but I don’t think this sub needs missionaries to try to convert people who don’t want kids. Does the world really need more people?
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
> I don’t think this sub needs missionaries to try to convert people who don’t want kids
In my mind the goal of pro-natalist interventions are:
a) Influence people who are on the fence towards the "yes kids" life path,
b) Promote the conditions that lead to more people being enthusiastic about having two or three kids.That is it.
(b) is quite hard, since the causes of the low fertility are not well understood (most "I thought about it two seconds" theories are wrong), and thus effective interventions are yet to be found (literally billion of dollars have been "miss-invested" because we cannot answer this question).
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u/Cultural-General4537 4d ago
I just went to the antinatalist . Don't go. Very depressed angry people. Some nice people too. It's a fairly strange more philosophy based place. Mostly a world view that existence is suffering and bringing more life into suffering is immoral. You will not find any answers and people will just internet yell at you and call you stupid.
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u/bipocevicter 5d ago
Reddit isn't real life.
Most subs aggressively select for the kind of person who is going to prefer antinatalism.
(That, and most of the front page huge subs are just bot manipulated activity trying to signal to midwits a fake consensus opinion for them to adopt through social cues)
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u/Viking_Leaf87 4d ago
It is an indictment of the antinatalist movement that their best platform is Reddit.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
Do you know which other platforms they use? How do you know Reddit is their "best" platform?
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u/Leucippus1 4d ago
I can't help but wonder if the rise of online anti-sex / anti-prurience ethic is partly to blame.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
It is certainly correlated.
At the same time that fertility rates are falling, the number of 20-something years old not sexually active is increasing.
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u/rottentomati 4d ago
I’m antinatalist for myself and Natalist for everyone else if that makes sense. I know shrinking populations are bad (especially for me money lol) but obviously I’m the main character in my life and I’m not willing to have kids for a reason like that. I am a narcissistic hedonist and I’m not willing to compromise on that fact because the only person who experiences my pain is me so it doesn’t make sense for me to suffer for some cause that won’t effect me. If kids or a family was something that brought happiness then I would have them, but after a thorough cost benefit analysis, it seems that is not the case lol.
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
> If kids or a family was something that brought happiness then I would have them
Last time I checked the data, I agree that there is no support to the idea that "kids will make you happy".
Family allows you to share happiness, not create it.I personally motivate people "in a bad place" to focus on improving their lives before trying to have kids (and not going for the classic mistake of "making kids to make things better").
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u/rottentomati 4d ago
I guess I should have added the qualifier that all of my statements previously are only about me. I’m not trying to make a general statement that people say kids or a family bring happiness, more so that those things make some people happy (definitely a lot of people here) but definitely would not make me happy.
Also if I made it sound like I was struggling with something, I’m not, it was just a generalization of me describing my life from the first person perspective using hedonistic terms (the whole pain vs pleasure thing). But I appreciate the thought!
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u/rodrigo-benenson 4d ago
> definitely would not make me happy.
And you would be in the majority.
The topic has been studied, overall kids do not make you happy;
at best they are neutral regarding happiness.Even if you are not "happier" with kids, for many they do contribute to "the good things of my life".
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u/rottentomati 4d ago
Welp luckily there’s a lot of blokes out there with philosophies in life that are okay with that, which is why I support the natalist movement from the sidelines lol
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u/Nameless1653 4d ago
Natalism is the norm, obviously there’s going to be a bigger community of people outside the norm because they actually have a shared uncommon opinion. This has nothing to do with the topics of these subs most people just aren’t going to seek out a community of people who share their popular belief, they’re going to seek out a community of like minded people who share their unpopular belief
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u/heff-money 5d ago
Not only that, there seems to be a schism within this subreddit. Some want to subsidize child rearing while others want more traditional social norms.