this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2026
989 points (97.1% liked)
Microblog Memes
10088 readers
1596 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Why not? Some people do not want to be a parent and never have. Just like others do not want to become dentists or accountants.
There's no genetic drive to be a banker in anyone. There is a drive to have children in some people, and that drive may not manifest for a while. At the same time, having a kid in your fifties is difficult in a way which retraining is not.
So it's not a good comparison. Just reply "I'm pretty confident, and having a child I don't think I want would be an insane thing to do and the only alternative".
It’s different though. Being a parent is coded into us. Being a banker is not
Its clearly not coded into all of us. The "having kids is coded into us" is at least partly "most of us are coded to want to fuck." We now have options that mean that doesnt have to cause birth.
I expect your "us" isnt as wide as you expect, as this growing global sentiment shows.
But it's clearly coded into most people. I expected my friend group to not want kids due to our demographic but they're breeding like rabbits (on purpose)
Nice sample size mate
That was an example. You can look at survey data for the full picture: of those adults in my country who don't already have children a full 45% want to, and only 28% don't want them.
This isn't controversial - it was just surprising to me hence I brought up the anecdote.
28% is a large portion for "only". Also, what happened to the other 27%?
Unsure/undecided
Buddy, if it wasn't wired into most people, there wouldn't be over 6 billion people in this world.
did you ever want to be a hunter/gatherer. being a hunter/gatherer is coded in us.
That kinda sounds ideal, actually.
Until one bad weather summer means you can't gather enough food to see you through the winter.
Bad weather is worse for agricultural communities than hunter/gatherers. We're sedentary, currently seeing crop failures and artificially inflated grocery costs.
I'm a forager and my BFF is a hunter. You can absolutely fish and hunt and forage in the winter.
No-one is keeping you.
I mean, yeah? I think a lot of my traits are hard-coded caveman traits that I've adapted to the modern world.
I think you magically give men the ability to survive comfortable and never work again, 85%+ uptake. Desire != Ability.
I am in my fifties and a significant number of my friends and family opted to not have children. The children conversation use to come up a lot, mainly because parents refuse to believe that other actually do not want to become parents. Almost without exception, the reason those friends and family members opted to not have kids was because they did not want to. Only one person has ever given a nihilistic reason like "I don't want to bring a child into this fucked up world". Almost every said that they just did not want kids. Simple as that.
I hear this most often from people who do have kids.
At least I have a selfless reason.
Along with "I just fucking can't keep one alive"
Fair enough, but I think many also regret it. So it’s not an unfounded question to ask someone
There have been a number of quantitative studies done on this topic, your perception is irrelevant unless you’re an epidemiological researcher on this. I was going to link some, but there are SO many. Just spend like 10 seconds searching the academic papers.
Many also regret having kids. Are you going to rub that in their faces as well?
By your logic, that means it is coded into us not to have kids. All kids just happen by accident when the parents just want to fuck. Which is how it happened thousands of years before we knew how it worked.
What makes you think that?
If they don't regret not having kids, your question is annoying and has been asked and answered countless times, to the point that you could easily find the answer online. If they DO regret not having kids, all you're doing is rubbing salt in a wound.
It's an obnoxious question. Stop asking.
I’m not going around and asking random people if that’s what you think. But like if you are close with someone I guess it’s a reasonable question in certain situations
I've chosen not to have kids because I really don't like children. If a family member or friend kept pestering me with "You may regret it" I would absolutely cut all contact. All you're doing is saying you don't think I'm able to decide how to live my life, because my needs and wants are different from yours.
What makes you think people don't already know there's a chance they'll regret it? Why do you think so little about their intelligence? Don't you think there's a bigger chance they'll regret having children, if their starting point is not wanting them?
Seems like a massive overreaction
No, someone questioning my ability to consider consequenses because I don't want to live like them is fucking self centered.
Sounds like you’re pretty self centred
No, it isn't. All it does is drive a wedge between our closeness.
I got an update that removed that code.
"It's not a bug, it's a feature!"
If that were truly a universal natural imperative, then you'd think gays & lesbians wouldn't exist.
Many gays and lesbians still adopt
Yes, which only goes to show the disconnect between the two sets of preferences.
Gays and lesbians have their own kids all the time. Not wanting to bang the opposite sex does not equal not wanting your own naturally born children.
But I agree, being parent isn't coded into all of us. It just has nothing to do with being gay.
God speed with this take. Getting this place to admit that most people want kids is an uphill battle you can't win.