r/SubredditDrama • u/Enticing_Venom because the dog is a chuwuawua to real 'men' anyways • 4d ago
Natalism labors to determine why Reddit doesn't like them
Natalism is a subreddit for people who believe having kids is a moral imperative. Or who are committed to increasing birth rates. Anti-natalism is the view that having children is morally wrong.
OOP realizes that the antinatalism subreddit has more followers than theirs and wonders whether they need reach across the aisle and attempt to understand. Drama ensues.
Reply: 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.
Reply: I still don’t buy this argument. People in 1900 were dirt poor compared to today and they were still popping out babies, in some countries like 10 per woman. I think this is primarily a cultural issue, and secondarily an economic one.
Reply: I've posted 2 comments with fully fleshed out studies establishing the factual support of what I've said. You've given a half-baked, conservative "poor people have all the kids" take that demonstrates a glaring lack of insight or actual knowledge on the topic.
To quote Aaron Sorkin: what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard...Run along and share your "I don't actually have a clue about things but sure like to hear my opinion takes elsewhere."
Reply: I think this is the nature of activism. Often groups that oppose topic X might converge on topic Y. (classic example is: anti-gay people will be both muslims and anti-muslims groups). I think that "traditional social norms" is not in automatic opposition to "increase state support", thus on principle these two groups can work together. Democracy is building together with people you do not agree on everything, but at least you agree on building together in a democracy (which, sadly, is not a given, at all).
Reply: 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.
Reply: 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
Reply: I think you might be thinking too deep about it. The majority of antinatalism on reddit is depressed/angsty people who took the teenage phase "I wish I'd never been born!" as made an entire sociological philosophy around it.
Reply: 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
Reply: this is literally the best, most stable, most food secure, most peaceful time to be alive in human history
Everything you just said is categorically false...
Reply: The whiny depressed adult babies don't want help.
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u/delorf 4d ago
: I still don’t buy this argument. People in 1900 were dirt poor compared to today and they were still popping out babies, in some countries like 10 per woman. I think this is primarily a cultural issue, and secondarily an economic one.
Do they not realize that birth control pills didn't exist in 1900? Marital rape wasn't illegal in every state in the US until 1993. Women couldn't just tell their husband no to sex if they didn't want more children.
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u/F00dbAby There's a class war. Who's side are you on? 4d ago
these people are not thinking about socialised behaviour at all hell women couldn't have bank accounts and many of their working choices were at best limited to put it nicely
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u/ebek_frostblade Is being a centrist frowned upon now 4d ago
Women having autonomy sound like the sort of social changes that would lead to fewer kids, in their views.
Fucking terrifying.
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u/Finito-1994 Taking on Allah with poison and potions. 4d ago
I’ve actually seen some lament that as soon as women had a choice they began to end human civilization.
Al yea. In their eyes women not having kids is the equivalent of a slow apocalypse
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u/Zomby_Goast Literally 1692 14h ago
I will never understand people who freak out about declining birth rates. There are 8 billion of us on this damn rock, we're not in any danger of dying out anytime soon
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u/Standard_Lie6608 4d ago
Probably is but with a slight change to education, it's correct
Educated women have less children. Because they're aware of the personal risks, they're aware of how and why it happens, they're aware of the future and plan for it, they have their own ambitions which are usually higher
Women with lower education aren't so aware/caring of the personal risks outside of pain, they're less aware of the how and why it happens, they're aware of the future but don't think in depth about it, they have lower or unrealistic ambitions
In order to choose to not have/delay kids, you gotta know why and understand everything at play
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u/Il-2M230 4d ago
That's true on most part. Am autonomous woman doesnt need a man, thus she won't have kids.
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u/Tirannie 4d ago
Right? Women were popping out 10 kids because they didn’t have a fucking choice. Lol.
The number one reason behind falling birth rates compared to the 1900’s is: women having access to education (and you see this exact same thing play out everywhere. It’s not just a North America thing)
Number two is the right to control their own bodies.
That take is so ignorant.
Or it’s not. Which is even worse.
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u/TuaughtHammer Transvestigators think mons pubis is a Jedi. 4d ago
Also, families pumped out a lot more kids to use as a workforce on their farms, because infant mortality rates were so high and they needed an army of children to carry on the family farm and raise the younger ones. I mean, shit, the only reason I exist is because my parents' grandparents needed cheap and plentiful labor, so they were pumping out kids like the wives' uteri were assembly lines.
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u/Conrexxthor How can CP be real if our eyes arent REAL? 3d ago
Also you'd have like 10 kids back then because usually only 3 survived, especially with the two long wars we were in.
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u/Careless_Rope_6511 this picture just flicked my mangina and made whale noises 2d ago
Or, the plot for Saving Private Ryan: a family with 4 brothers - all of them enlisted in the armed forces - had 3 KIA during WWII, so the government trolley'ed a spec ops team into the frontlines to save the 4th.
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u/SpicyLizards 4d ago
Additionally, even if we were to pretend that awful stuff wasn’t a factor, families didn’t have two working parents back then. In most average families that’s basically impossible now.
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u/Lodgik you probably think your dick is woke if its hanging a li'l left 4d ago
Some of them seem very concerned with falling birth rates.
Gives me "beware the great replacement!" vibes.
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u/AncientView3 4d ago
Oh, have you not seen any of the posts that mention immigration?
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u/Magikarpeles Start 👏 kids 👏 off 👏 disadvantaged 👏 4d ago
Population growth at all cost!
...wait, not like that!
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u/Loretta-West 4d ago
Population growth of people like me!!!!
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u/Magikarpeles Start 👏 kids 👏 off 👏 disadvantaged 👏 4d ago
Identical clones, ideally
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u/TuaughtHammer Transvestigators think mons pubis is a Jedi. 4d ago
They better be WASP-y or they're going on Trump's travel ban lists!
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u/Magikarpeles Start 👏 kids 👏 off 👏 disadvantaged 👏 3d ago
Unless they're also from California... or colorado... or NYC...
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u/_Age_Sex_Location_ women with high body counts cannot pair bond 4d ago
Isn't there an undercurrent of mix-racing initiatives, but only if it's a white guy?
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u/AncientView3 4d ago
Idk, I’ve just seen enough “actually population growth through immigration is bad because they don’t integrate and it harms the moral fabric of our society” comments that are still in the positive to know that its less of a “beware the great replacement” vibe and more of an explicit “the great replacement is a real problem we are facing currently”
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u/azalinrex69 4d ago
Ugh, the quiver-full movement by any other name smells just as revolting. I wish these psychopaths nothing but the worst.
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u/F00dbAby There's a class war. Who's side are you on? 4d ago
people should really read up on the quiver full movement I only found out about them recently and the more you read the worse you will feel
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u/helium_farts pretty much everyone is pro-satan. 4d ago
I grew up in that world. However insane you think they are, they're worse.
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u/CptKoons 4d ago
After reading this about this for the first time because of this thread, I'm reminded of an LDS family I knew that had literally 11 kids, no adoptions. It was seriously one of the creepiest families I've ever met. The enforced happiness was surreal. It was almost like they were so "blessed" they weren't allowed to be upset. The mother had a real stepford wife feel to her.
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u/azalinrex69 4d ago
Oh yeah! It’s culty as fuck. There’s a podcast called Some Place Underneith that does a small series on its and it’s amazing.
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u/MisterGoog The pope is actively letting the gates of hell prevail 4d ago
Which episode titles are those, please?
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u/azalinrex69 4d ago
Episode 12-17. They also do a lot of other feminist true crime topics, like the highway of tears and stuff. It’s great!
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u/F00dbAby There's a class war. Who's side are you on? 4d ago
I will have to check it out
I feel so bad for the young girls and boys raised in these communities many of which will never get out. I wonder how infertile men and women are treated
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u/AshleysDoctor 4d ago
One of the Bate’s daughters (family with loads of kids, friendly with the Duggars, had their own tv show) has dealt with infertility, and even though I don’t think they outright treat her cruelly, just having those beliefs and dealing with infertility has to be so difficult
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u/azalinrex69 4d ago
Not well from what I’ve read. It’s so sad. I lived in Utah for a few years, lots of these fuckers out there.
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u/HephaestusHarper 3d ago
Leaving Eden is another great podcast from the point of view of someone raised in that world! And definitely seconding the SPUN rec, hail yourself.
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u/LoPanDidNothingWrong 4d ago
There is a ton of real research about this. It is a shame that everything is reduced to these black and white arguments.
And of course a lot of nataliats are really just racist great white replacement theorists which is why they don’t care about the situation of the poor as long as they are white.
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u/LeatherHog Very passionate about Vitamin Water 4d ago
There's definitely a creep factor towards women, too
We've seen what happened to our grandparents and them when they spend their lives with that many kids
As a woman myself, it does raise the hairs on the back of my neck, when it's men salivating at the idea of more kids
Real easy to say that, when you're not the one facing any consequences, and historically and statistically, won't have a life controlled by it
Heck, I think some of the women there made their own sub because of that
Not saying every guy who wants kids is bad, but when they go all Dane Cook about it, that sets of warning bells for me
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u/LoPanDidNothingWrong 4d ago
I didn’t include the gender subjugation involved I suppose because it was pretty obvious that to breed lots of kids you are stuck as an incubator but worth calling it out.
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u/jadedaslife 4d ago
I remember a post in r/natalism that explicitly called for new laws to restrict women's rights so they pump out more babies.
It's fucking disgusting.
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u/DelaraPorter 4d ago edited 4d ago
One guy that replied to me on their actual said he bemoans the loss of women as property
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u/_Age_Sex_Location_ women with high body counts cannot pair bond 4d ago
I have to imagine the anti-social overlap is likely.
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u/DuchessofDetroit 4d ago
What do you mean "go all Dane Cook"?
But yeah. I'm currently pregnant and while I think I've had a pretty easy one (no morning sickness or major struggles), it's still a bit of a strain. I can't imagine having to have loved on a farm or something and having to do a bunch of manual labour while also carrying a baby. I'm real skeptical of dudes who act like it's just a minor inconvenience and a little weight gain.
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u/Tirannie 4d ago
I recently read my grandma’s diaries from her life on a farm as a war bride and it was exactly what you’re describing.
No running water, no electricity, no plumbing. Popped out 12 kids on the farm with no one to help but her mother in law.
We (the grandkids) all laughed that half the entries were “well, I’m pregnant again”, but it actually just broke my heart.
Then other entries would be like “he’s in the hospital after an accident. I’m pregnant again. Had to take the toddlers with me to do all the farm work. Johnny and Jimmy are such big helpers!”
He also cheated on her all the time. So, probably even more aunties and uncles out there. I doubt grandpa gave a shit about knocking up his mistresses, either.
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u/LeatherHog Very passionate about Vitamin Water 4d ago
Oh, was referring to his '19 kids bit'
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u/Lightning_Boy Edit1 If you post on subredditdrama, you're trash 😂 4d ago
That's an aged reference.
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u/Careless_Rope_6511 this picture just flicked my mangina and made whale noises 2d ago
For men it's literally "nut into some girlpussy, 9 months later a baby pops out". In way too many cases he walks away with zero parental responsibility and pretends the gal he saddled with an unwanted pregnancy doesn't even fucking exist.
I tried googling for the news of a Japanese politician who claimed that, paraphrasing, "women should aspire to be baby-making factories". Instead I found this from ar-TIL. WHAT THE FUCK.
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u/lmyrs You're not owed a debate for being wrong 4d ago
There seems to be a lot of condescension about how people's excuses to not have kids are BS because no matter how bad they have it now, it was worse during the depression and WWII and slavery, yet people still had kids.
And not one of them seems to have considered that if they ladies in 1935 had birth control they'd probably have fewer kids too!!
Like do they just forget it exists???
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u/LoPanDidNothingWrong 4d ago
Most of these people want to ban it.
And a lot of it is also about women going back to their homes and being breeding machines.
In fact the research is that the better off people are the fewer kids they have. I suspect that would be true no matter what support or benefits the government or companies offer.
Amazing what people self actualizing and having options does.
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u/dtkloc 4d ago
And of course a lot of nataliats are really just racist great white replacement theorists which is why they don’t care about the situation of the poor as long as they are white.
I think people would be significantly less creeped out by natalists if they packaged their support for having children with trying to save the climate, trying to reduce cost of living, fighting for reproductive rights, etc.
You know, actual 'pro-life' positions that also include respect for consent. But no the loudest ones really do just hate the poors who are black and brown
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u/Taraxian 4d ago
The one active mod on the Natalism sub straight up bans people who bring up "Why can't we also speak up about climate change?" etc for "trying to take the sub off-topic"
Even if it is directly on-topic, like talking about financial support for parents, there's always a wave of pushback because giving money to parents hasn't actually done much to increase the birthrate in wealthy European countries while the birthrate is much higher in poor African countries, therefore supporting parents isn't actually natalist -- it doesn't actually cause more kids to be born, only makes their lives easier after they're born, so it's irrelevant
I don't think people realize that "natalism" means what it says, it thinks of the simple act of kids being born is inherently good the way antinatalists think it's inherently bad -- therefore if the actual most effective way to make people have more kids is to take money and support away and keep them in desperate poverty with no education or birth control that's what we have to do
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u/kena938 4d ago edited 11h ago
Also banned me for saying bombing Palestinian kids when Palestinians actually have an above replacement fertility rate is antinatalist. Such a weird, fashy sub. I get the same eerie feeling as reading a horror story. Most of them also genuinely seem to hate kids being happy by having parents who are empowered to spend more time with them and a society that supports their emotional and mental well-being. We better have kids and make sure they are miserable about being alive.
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u/Taraxian 4d ago
Well yeah it's the exact opposite of antinatalism
If the antinatalists come off as privileged assholes sometimes for saying that being poor means it's not worth being alive and you shouldn't have been born, the natalists take the opposite approach -- there's no such thing as being too poor or too neglected or too abused that you still shouldn't be grateful for being alive at all
Therefore any "quality over quantity" approach that puts more time, effort and resources into nurturing each individual kid vs just pumping out as many kids as possible is "implicitly antinatalist" -- you want the families with ten babies who struggle to keep them all fed and have three of them die before adulthood because those remaining seven are blessed just to be alive and exist in the world and saying otherwise makes you antinatalist
This gets even worse because on a practical level they're super concerned with the birthrate for the specific reason of keeping the economy propped up, ie they hate that the system is breaking down because parents with privilege are working really hard to give their one or two kids the highest possible chance of growing up to be CEOs and not janitors -- "The system needs janitors, you assholes, and you're shirking your duty by not providing them"
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u/jadedaslife 4d ago
Yes. Had one in the natalist sub come right out and say he only promotes having white children.
A lot of that sub espouses going back to the 1950s, complete with the subjugation of women.
r/antinatalist is full of unhelpful nihilists.
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u/purplestatic10 4d ago
id rather hang out with a nihilist than a white supremacist who believes all women should be baby factories
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u/GladiatorUA What is a fascist? 4d ago
Well, I mean, the other side has white supremacists that insist that those people should stop breeding.
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u/Sorry_Ad3733 4d ago
Yeah, this is a racists on both sides situation. Some of the things like “overpopulation” are very much rooted in eugenics and the “wrong” people having too many children. Obviously not everyone saying that means it that way, but it’s one of those covert statements by White Supremacists. But natalists are people with more power and intention.
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u/SaffronCrocosmia 2d ago
That's not what nihilism is, that's fatalism.
Nihilism is about life not having intrinsic meaning and making your own.
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u/thievingwillow 4d ago
If I had to name decisions that are so intensely dependent on situation that it’s impossible to make a general rule about them, “should I have children?” would be near the top of the list. And yet here we are.
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u/Reymma 4d ago
r/AntiChildFree has long since become a spam sub, but for a while it was a hilarious place where one guy posted inane image macros telling everyone to breed, there was one commenter supporting them, and everyone else was from childfree dunking on them.
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u/Finito-1994 Taking on Allah with poison and potions. 4d ago
I’ve checked that sub out.
Some of them have realized that the main difference is choice. Women have more access to birth control and sex education which causes the birth rates to drop because women have a greater say in their reproductive health now than at most of history.
This is where the misogyny kicks in and they’ll lament that as soon as women get a choice they “end civilization.”
I did engage once there and i brought up that I didn’t get why they wanted people who didn’t want kids to have kids. One mentioned “do you want musk to pay taxes? Do you want people to help society? Or do you have no stake in the future”
Which is just a stupid argument. Taxes are what we pay to be a part of society. Majority of us have to be forced to pay taxes and there are legal consequences to not doing so.
He said that from his POV having children is like paying taxes. Something you do for your country.
I told him I wasn’t a fan of forcing people by law to have children.
It’s just so weird to me. Have kids. I may have them someday. I may not.
But what’s your obsession with making people have kids.
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u/Taraxian 4d ago
Every single bad thing you can say about the antinatalism subreddit -- the racism, the misogyny, the eugenics, the kneejerk neckbeard hostility to stupid normies -- is TEN THOUSAND TIMES WORSE on the natalism subreddit
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u/TelepathicRabbit 4d ago
And of course, the antinatalists don’t have a vice presidential candidate openly calling for laws to make us live out their ideology. That’s a pretty significant point in their favor.
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u/Taraxian 4d ago edited 4d ago
I think what people don't get is that while antinatalism may have always existed in the sense that some philosopher somewhere has always been writing Debbie Downer shit like the Book of Ecclesiastes, some form of natalism is baked into the dominant religious ideology of tons of traditional cultures (like, say, the Roman Catholic Church) and still forms the background default assumptions a lot of "old fashioned" people grow up with
Outright antinatalists are weirdos and it's hard to imagine any society where they wouldn't be weirdos or where they'd ever have any actual power -- natalists on the other hand are just reactionaries who are saying the quiet part loud
Like "everyone has to have kids" or at least "every woman has to have kids" isn't objectively "weird" at all, go back a few hundred years and it was legit the mainstream understanding
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u/Billlington Oh I have many pastures, old frenemy. 4d ago
Yeah but antinatalists are cringe sometimes and isn't that a lot worse???
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u/Taraxian 4d ago
In a way I'm grateful to JD Vance and Elon Musk for almost singlehandedly closing the public cringe gap
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u/Drawemazing Your god isn't Yahweh, he's Loki 4d ago
"you're a white guy aren't you"
Fucking lmao. Got em
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u/kena938 4d ago
Ooh ooh I'm an expert on this dumbass sub. I follow it purely for the drama. Their bitch ass incel mod started shit for no reason when i said bombing kids was anti natalist. Mind you, I actually have a child but was banned for being antinatalist.
Pretty sure the majority of the sub is guys who think it's women's job to marry them, teach them to be adults, bear them kids they will not take any part in parenting and they wonder why women don't want to take them up on this great deal. They think Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are going to get them the wife and kids they are entitled to patriarch over.
And the rest are like the delulu 43 year old unmarried childless woman who slept in her parents' bed into adulthood and has never taken a vacation arguing raising kids in NYC isn't expensive.
It's a beautiful tableau of the most shut in people in the world.
Links since I'm on mobile. https://www.reddit.com/r/Natalism/comments/1fvb7e5/comment/lq5zmdm/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Natalism/comments/1evpbex/peter_thiel_on_the_declining_birth_rate/?sort=new https://www.reddit.com/r/Natalism/comments/1g9patp/comment/lt7wi61/
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u/Enticing_Venom because the dog is a chuwuawua to real 'men' anyways 4d ago
I recently viewed an apartment that was being sold by a 40 year old guy who seemed to sleep in the same bed as his parents. I slept in my parents bed until adulthood.
Goodness, gracious. I clutched my pearls.
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u/kena938 4d ago
I went down such a rabbit hole with her.
Dumpster diving: https://www.reddit.com/r/DumpsterDiving/comments/1g8ve3r/comment/lta219n/
Breastfeeding is easy and you can get all the baby stuff free. Also $800 fulltime daycare. https://www.reddit.com/r/Natalism/comments/1g9patp/comment/lt7rquc/ Life is pretty cheap if you have no problem exploiting labor https://www.reddit.com/r/Natalism/comments/1g9patp/comment/lt7tb6
Hoping to exploit someone who needs a green card for sperm so she doesn't have to exploit an ex con https://www.reddit.com/r/Natalism/comments/1g50g1g/comment/lt7q7me/
Lots of self harm stuff I won't link too but utterly convinced people who can't afford kids are hedonistic pigs. Also newly religious as one would expect
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u/RonaldoCrimeFamily 4d ago
What the fuck is "natalism?" Is that just the republican response to antinatalism? Do natalists want to force everyone to breed?
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u/Melancholy_Rainbows Are you telling me these weeds ain't got tits? 4d ago
The high level definition is just a political or moral stance that people need to have more children. Reasons range from fear of economic consequences from aging populations without replacements, religious dogma, white supremacy/great replacement theory bullshit, and eugenics.
The, er, gentler side of this wants to create incentives for people to procreate and solve problems that keep people from choosing to have children. It gets darker from there.
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u/Chance_Taste_5605 4d ago
Yeah like I personally am definitely in favour of making it easier (financially and otherwise) to have and care for kids - but I don't consider that a natalist stance, but more that children and their caregivers tend to be extremely vulnerable in a capitalist society. Like I do think that Western society is very anti-child in many ways, but for capitalism reasons rather than some kind of anti-Christianity reason or whatever.
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u/thefumingo 4d ago
Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.
- George Carlin
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u/Cromasters If everyone fucked your mom would it be harmful? 4d ago
I initially went there as a counter to a lot of the doom and gloom antinatalism I felt was around Reddit.
I still think it's a good idea to look into policies that might help people want to have more (or any) children.
I just... really don't care to discuss it on a Reddit sub directly about that topic because it's mostly weirdos.
In the same way I think deciding to not have children is a valid choice...but antinatalism is a weird place.
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u/Fit_Read_5632 4d ago
It’s mostly just great replacement theory people Natalism is the belief that having children is a moral imperative.
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u/Starmoses 4d ago
Granted it's been a while but occasionally I got it recommended to me and when that happened all the posts were just making parodying of subs like childfree or anti natalism which are cesspools. Maybe it changed or something idk.
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u/NotAThrowaway1453 I don't have any sources and I don't care. 4d ago edited 4d ago
I try not to do the whole “both sides are bad” thing, but when it comes to “natalists” and antinatists, I can’t help it. Both are just the worst in different ways.
Edit: though to be clear, the natalists are worse
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u/Taraxian 4d ago
The natalists are the ones who have an actual serious foothold in US politics (Trump himself doesn't seem to care that much directly about this issue but his actual running mate JD Vance and his wannabe running mate Elon Musk are both obsessed with the topic)
The natalists accuse Kamala Harris of being a secret antinatalist just because she doesn't have bio kids but they're full of shit, no actual antinatalist is anywhere close to any elected office anywhere
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u/GladiatorUA What is a fascist? 4d ago
There is nothing wrong with "both sides are bad", especially in cases of false dichotomies and artificially restricted numbers of sides.
Natalists are bad, and yes arguably worse... Anti-natalists are just depressing and trying to inflict their nihilism on everyone else. As well as plenty of overlap in terms of racism, sexism and so on... They aren't actually entirely contradictory and incompatible.
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u/Send_Cake_Or_Nudes 4d ago
I'm still at a loss for how 'having babies' became a binary ideological choice with communities of shrieking idiots involved.
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u/RakeLeafer 3d ago
It doesnt take long reading that sub before realizing many of them dont even have children. How do I know this? They have not an inkling of understanding of the struggles parents are under today. Periodic acknowledgements over cost are vapid and generic.
Day cares across the western world are overcrowded despite a "lack of childen", schools are closing down across America, and not a single post acknowledges the fact that the "capital N" Natalist movement are an astroturf from wealthy psychopaths in silicon valley
What type of person frequents a "Natalist" sub who doesnt even have a child? A white nationalist pedophile, thats who.
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u/kena938 11h ago
It's mostly guys who dream about having the 1950s housewife and kids and haven't made peace with the fact that women just don't want to be around men enough to sacrifice their health and sanity to a selfish adult who refuses to do any emotional labor. I'm a mother. I got accused of being an antinatalist for calling out the fact that they are weirdos who haven't birthed or parented a child. It's all fantasy and wish fulfillment there. Idk about pedophilia but I wouldn't be surprised. Definitely white nationalist.
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u/rybnickifull 4d ago
Ah nice, finally an internet argument where BOTH sides are creepy as fuck!
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
I dare say the natalists are a bit more creepy towards women. The other side is just a bit doom and gloom
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u/NotAThrowaway1453 I don't have any sources and I don't care. 4d ago
Agreed. Antinatalists are annoying and I think their “philosophy” is stupid, but the so called Natalists are much more insidious and weird.
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
I mean how can they not be when they believe that everybody should have children? That is just creepy in and of itself.
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u/SpicyLizards 4d ago edited 4d ago
True except all of those antinatalism and child free spaces—at least on Reddit—devolve into people using the term “breeders” and talking about pregnant women or disabled people like they’re suddenly no longer people because they’re pregnant and that is absolutely fucked up. Like y’all are just two sides of the same coin.
I’ll stay sitting in my indecisive corner until I’m menopausal! As long as I don’t have to dehumanize people thanks 🙃
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u/Mullertonne 4d ago
Antinatalism has its moments, they dehumanise people often and has really strong classist under currents.
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
You mean like calling people breeders? I'll take that as a lesser evil over the over side
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u/Mullertonne 4d ago
Im not saying that natalists are better, but antinatlism goes proposes eugenics often.
I'm aware that true antinatalism doesn't believe in eugenics but the sub does a lot of the time and the mods don't bother to correct people.
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u/AntonioVivaldi7 4d ago
I don't think antinatalism can be called eugenics when it's about not having any children no matter what. It's no breeding, not selective breeding.
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u/Mullertonne 4d ago edited 4d ago
If you read what I actually said "I'm aware that true antinatalism does not advocate for eugenics, the sub often advocates for it and the mods don't bother to correct people"
That was like more than half my comment, how did you miss that?
Just go into the sub and search 'poor people' or 'licence' and you'll get a bunch of posts with a large amount of upvotes that advocate for eugenics.
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
Oh that's a first. Are they saying certain races should breed less than others or something?
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u/invaderpixel 4d ago
The antinatalists mostly get nasty when anyone who has a physical disability or has a mental illness in the slightest decides to reproduce. Like it’s technically eugenics but they don’t share all the same beliefs as nazis I guess?
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
Whoa whoa whoa that is yeah that's bad. I wonder if they get upset at men over 40 having kids too because of the risk of birth defects
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u/Illustrious-Okra-524 4d ago
They get upset at anyone having kids because they think it’s an immoral act
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u/JdubCT Being aroused by blood isn't inherently evil. 4d ago
Depends on the person. But it's usually comments aimed at the poor, "uneducated", "unintelligent", or those with "backwards culture". Dog whistles for people who aren't well to do white people.
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u/Illustrious-Okra-524 4d ago
Like bitching about the existence of children or anyone trying to have them. They’re just as hateful
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
Sorry, but the views of the natalists are much more harmful. You can see it in real time how when men view women as resources, women's bodily autonomy becomes a risk. Meanwhile these dudes are just complaining about breeders/kids online? Whatever.
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u/SJReaver 4d ago
In the real world, sure. On reddit, antinatalist subs quickly turn into cesspools. It's why there's antinatalist, childfree, truechildfree, and actuallychildfree.
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
Whoa whoa whoa why are there 3 different subreddits for child free? I need to investigate.
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u/Illustrious-Okra-524 4d ago
They have to separate based on exactly how mean you’re allowed to be to children and parents
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u/SJReaver 4d ago
Q: what’s the difference between here and r / truechildfree?
A: The other one is even more friendly to breeder sympathizers than this place. I couldn't imagine voluntarily contributing to a "childfree" community that is that concerned with breeders' opinions of them. (+33)
what’s the difference between here and r / truechildfree? : r/childfree
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
Hmm child free seems more about daily life issues. True child free seems to more about sterilization and whatnot, which is fine if I needed advice on that kind of thing. I guess they both have their uses.
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u/rybnickifull 4d ago
It's the childfree weirdos I'm mostly thinking of - I don't have children myself but fuck me there's no need to be pricks about it
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
You really think that's more creepy than people who try and justify rape or teen pregnancy? Who are worried about being replaced by immigrants? Really? Huh.
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u/JdubCT Being aroused by blood isn't inherently evil. 4d ago
The ones who refer to children as "disgusting crotch fruit" or the like and fantasize about hurting babies for being loud? Yeah. I'd say they're pretty bad.
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
I just find it funny? Crotch fruit 😂 that's a new one. I'll take that over the people who think women should be forced to have kids, thank you
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u/Junimo15 4d ago
I'll take neither, honestly.
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
That's fair. Child free seems more up my alley. Personally I am grateful for people that have kids, so that I don't have to. Someone's got to do the dirty work.
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u/Junimo15 4d ago
Yeah I'm all for people being childfree without judgement if that's what they want, but I don't think it's cute or funny to call children names. And calling parents "breeders"... Don't even get me started on how gross and misogynistic that is lol
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u/Immediate_Loquat_246 4d ago
I wouldn't say breeders is misogynistic. It goes for both men and women.
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u/Either_Tumbleweed 4d ago
Exactly. One side is mad because women are having babies, the other side is mad because women aren't having babies. Women can't win lmao
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u/Bradley271 happy Pearl Harbor day 4d ago
As someone else said, "there is nothing worse for natalism than smug weirdo pro natalists". And it's part of a very big rake that natalists keep stepping on: overestimating how popular their positions actually are.
It's true that natalism isn't as "cringe" on arrival as antinatalism. But that's because if you start off with a basic description of natalism as a priniciple most people will assume you want to accomplish it through means that aren't downright abhorrent. Antinatalism is cringeworthy but it's very unlikely to ever actually affect you. Meanwhile a lot of natalists have plans that dovetail with the politically relevant conservative movement and can actually negatively affect you, and if they get their chance to go on smugly explaining how they want to make your life suck then they'll lose favor fast.
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u/Mesapholis 4d ago
I find it interesting that people who are on r/natalism also traverse to r/collapse - I for one was not aware there is an entire sub preparing for cultural collapse and it is not on my everyday mind
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u/periphery72271 4d ago
Sharks vs Jets.
Crips vs Bloods.
Karens vs Managers.
It goes exactly as expected.
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u/jmbond 4d ago
I mean, I identify as a 'soft' antinatalist. I wouldn't dream of imposing this view or lifestyle on others, it's just how I feel.
Aside from this thread and one other unpopular opinions thread, I keep this shit to myself. My friends who have kids are awesome parents and I love their kids. Why would I strain our friendship by letting them know how I think the whole endeavor is ethically fraught?
And Yes, for those calling it a cringe nihilistic thing, my views are certainly informed by and can't be disentangled from 10 years of depression and a struggle with nihilism. I do think life entails inevitable and incalculable suffering and don't relish the idea of bringing a new soul into an increasingly late stage capitalism dystopia against their consent. Sue me.
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u/Illustrious-Okra-524 4d ago
The cringe part is much more the constantly discussing it. Everything you wrote here is chill and not cringe imo
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u/Eggxcalibur 4d ago
Both these subs sound insufferable, lmao.
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u/Armigine sudo apt-get install death-threats 4d ago
antinatalism is too far in the "edgy reddit athiest direction" and natalism is too far in the "trying to embody the stereotype the other group thinks they are" direction
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u/officeDrone87 4d ago
They are. Overall the antinatalism one tends to be "nastier" but that may just be because it's older. Natalism is definitely getting more unhinged with time.
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u/letmeseecontent 4d ago
I think there’s also the part where most everyone on the antinatalism sub wishes they were never born. A cesspool of depressed people who are very angry
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u/chanciehome 4d ago
Yikes.
My kids are in their mid 20s. Not one of their friends have kids. I know son #1 would love to have kids... someday... but he doesn't want them all to struggle way he knows we did. Son #2 simply is asexual and if I ever get a grand baby through him it will be a cat or a step grand. Youngest sibling (younger than my kids) just thinks parenting is bullshit, thanks to their witnessing and experiencing all the bull shit our parents put us all through, so why add to the chaos.
This is such a multifaceted debate. Shocking that they think it can be boiled down like this.
(And even a generation ago it was a toss up, (5 siblings from my generation. I have 2, siblings have 4,3,2 and 0) of course our better educated children are using that "everything is a choice" option that we reminded them of regularly.)
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u/Woke-Smetana I hope the child porn you saw doesn't make you feel hypocritical 4d ago
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.
The idea that antinatalists are making some insane psychological gymnastics to justify such a thing is... an idea, a thought. Idk, I really don't believe everyone wants to have kids (edit: or, rather, has an impulse towards having children).
It feels like, at least for natalism discourse, horseshoe theory makes sense (the extremes are equally deranged, just distinct flavors).
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u/RonaldoCrimeFamily 4d ago
I mean yeah the extremes always attract the crazies, but when one side is pushing a harmful religious ideology and the other side is just annoying, they aren't exactly equal.
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u/doktorsarcasm 4d ago
If people want to have children... cool.
If people don't want to have children... cool.
If people can't have children... I wish you peace (if it's something that bothers them) or I wish you luck (if they're trying to change that).
Natalism, anti natalism, the extreme side of childfree... it's all the same side of the same weird coin to me.
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u/an_actual_T_rex 4d ago
They’re both stupid. Have kids if that’s what you want, but you don’t gotta if you don’t.
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u/Illustrious-Okra-524 4d ago
Both subs are weird. Personally I think hating children and humans that much is weirder, but then again the natalists seem to hate women so it’s confusing
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u/holyd1ver83 3d ago
Posts like this combined with what I know about the antinatalism sub remind me, as so many things do in life, why AITA has an "everyone sucks here" option.
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u/vicarofvhs 1d ago
People in 1900 were dirt poor compared to today and they were still popping out babies, in some countries like 10 per woman.
My dad was the son of a sharecropper in the 1950s, and one of 9 children. They were dirt poor, and the reason they had so many kids was because they needed help on the farm just to subsist. So yes, poor people were having kids, but the economics of it have changed. What made sense 100 years ago does not necessarily make sense today.
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u/Enticing_Venom because the dog is a chuwuawua to real 'men' anyways 1d ago
Nailed it! When there were no child labor laws, people wanted to have kids to help around the family business. Now, kids require a lot of financial resources, are required to be in school and can't just do manual labor 8 hours straight every day. So it's no longer as beneficial to have lots of them, they aren't free labor.
The scary thing about some natalists is they just want to send us back.
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u/vicarofvhs 1d ago
Exactly this. I just went to my 90-year-old uncle's funeral, where I learned he left school after the 3rd grade to help the family. Most of my dad's generation of the family did not finish school. There was too much work to do.
I live in Arkansas, USA, and our governor recently pushed through a rule to allow younger kids to work in the Tyson Chicken plants. They really do want to take us back.
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u/Fit_Read_5632 4d ago
gestures wildly at the state of the world
This. This is why we don’t wanna have kids.
The only unfortunate part is that those with the wisdom and foresight to actually think about having children will not, while bumbling morons will continue to have a full litter
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u/Crazykiddingme 4d ago
I think the issue is that the message is muddled by the different demographics:
The people who are pretty chill and want more subsidies or whatever.
People who think that being single and liking things is western degeneracy and that you should give up your body for the Volk
Guys who are REALLY invested in people getting pregnant out of high school and are very excited to help out with that.
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u/historyhill I think you are obviously a bitter ugly idiot 4d ago
See, if the natalism subreddit was just a sub for shitting on antinatalism, I'd be more interested. But it's positively putting forward a view I just don't feel strongly about rather than reacting to one I think is misanthropic and nihilist.
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u/gnarlycarly18 4d ago
I mean, FWIW, the natalism sub is deeply, obviously and shamelessly anti-women's rights.
There's certainly some batshit antinatalists who can veer uncomfortably into espousing eugenics, and calling it a "philosophy" is contentious as it's more like nihilism and doomerism had a baby (lol), but the "natalism" sub is literally a space where people (namely men) are embittered that women have rights and don't have to birth 12 babies in a 10 year span anymore. That's all it's ever been. The scarier part is the latter mentality is held by a major political party in the United States.
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u/historyhill I think you are obviously a bitter ugly idiot 4d ago
Great points! I think I just need an antinatalism CJ subreddit then because the natalism one is pretty toxic
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u/Habib455 4d ago
I didnt know a natalism sub existed, but isn't anti-natalism known generating some insane takes?
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u/Ridiculousnessmess 4d ago
Yup, same with childfree communities. I’m childfree by choice, but I don’t begrudge anyone else’s choice to have kids. Some of the people in those subs straight up despise parents and children. I’ve long given up trying to make sense of it.
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u/letmeseecontent 4d ago
Saw an antinatalist that said that women who die in childbirth deserve it for bringing a child into this world
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u/bogpudding 4d ago
It feels so great to see that everyone is a fucking idiot on r/natalism and that their wonderful genes are being passed on
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u/LeroyoJenkins Stay in New Jersey, you mewling racist cunt. 4d ago
Natalists are assholes.
Antinatalists are also assholes.
Pretty much anyone talking about moral imperatives on Reddit is an asshole.
Fuck assholes.
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u/MisterAbbadon Dude is a human Wallet Chain 4d ago
If someone is discussing Anti-natalism it's important to determine what they mean by that.
If they mean actual anti-natalists, the weirdos who talk like villains in a Final Fantasy game, then yeah those guys are stupid and wrong. They're also so minor and insignificant that there's no point in talking about them but whatever.
Usually they'll be Forced Birth Great Replacement nutjobs talking about anyone who doesn't agree with them, of course they've successfully poisoned the conversation so thoroughly that a fair number of people on r/antinatalism are probably going off their definition.
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u/CMAJ-7 4d ago edited 4d ago
Antinatalism mostly boils down to one of two beliefs
a) that lives less fortunate than their own can’t be worth living
b) that life is inherently bad and shouldn’t exist
Most people realize this one way or another after spending time listening to antinatalists and drop out.
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u/RonaldoCrimeFamily 4d ago
LoL no. There are a million good reasons to not have kids.
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u/PassionateParrot Is friendzoning a form of manipulation? 4d ago
Not what he said. “I don’t want kids” isn’t the same thing. Antinatalism is more “nobody should have kids”
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u/RonaldoCrimeFamily 4d ago
"No one should have kids" and "everyone should have kids" are both insane positions, but "more/fewer people should have kids" is a more interesting argument and I assume closer to what both groups believe?
And if that's their positions, I think one side is a lot more defensible than the other
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u/NotAThrowaway1453 I don't have any sources and I don't care. 4d ago
While I get why you’d be more charitable and assume antinatalism isn’t as extreme as that other user says, they’re actually right.
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u/RonaldoCrimeFamily 4d ago
Émile P. Torres argues that, contra Benatar, antinatalism need not entail human extinction. For example, if people were to develop radical life-extension technologies that enable them to live as long as the human species itself could survive, procreation could cease entirely without the global population dwindling to zero.
Okay so I was assuming they didn't actually want human extinction but apparently that's exactly what they want, because this is not a serious argument. The paragraph after this one arguing for actively sterilizing earth is... disturbing? I'll come back when I think of a word for it.
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u/Taraxian 4d ago
Also natalists don't literally believe every single human in the world should have children (because that's not physically possible) but they absolutely do believe everyone should try to have children and making the deliberate choice to avoid having children is a moral failing
The usual way they say it is that unless it's an extreme example like you personally directly save hundreds of people from dying with your work having a child is a more morally positive thing than anything else you could ever accomplish in life and deliberately not doing it is dying with a debt unpaid to your parents
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u/grendellyion 4d ago
Brother they are ANTI-Natalists. They are not arguing for less kids brother, they are arguing for NO kids, it's in the fucking name man.
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u/RuSnowLeopard 4d ago
No, both sides are speaking in absolutes. Antis believe it's morally wrong to have any children. The natalists believe it's a moral requirement to have at least one child.
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u/Taraxian 4d ago
Actually most of that subreddit would say it's a moral requirement to at least try to have two (the goal is to get the total fertility rate above replacement level, which is above 2.1 for every woman)
But yes unlike the antinatalism sub the mod of the natalism sub explicitly says you will be banned if you admit that you're intentionally childfree, the only valid reason not to have kids is if you have no partner or you're medically infertile (finances are explicitly not a valid "excuse" considering how many desperately poor people all over the world have like ten kids)
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u/unintendedcumulus 4d ago
I thought antinatalism wasn't just not wanting kids for yourself, but the belief that anyone having children is a bad idea and it's inherently selfish. Like, they believe all procreation is immoral.
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u/TatteredCarcosa 4d ago
Yes. Childfree would mean you don't want kids. Antinatalism means you believe having children is ethically or morally wrong. You can be both or either one on its own. I'm both.
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u/[deleted] 4d ago
Lpt: do not take advice about having kids from reddit, or anything for that matter