From a pretty early age I decided I didn't want to get married or have kids cuz both my parents seemed utterly miserable. For a long time I found it weird anyone wanted to do it at all, why would you want to be trapped with someone you hate who you get into screaming arguments all the time?

And it's not just me, you see a lot of jokes online about people like playing that one scene from Marriage Story while playing old N64 games for nostalgia.

I think the experience of seeing our own parents be so miserable maybe soured a lot of us on starting families.

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[–] infuziSporg@hexbear.net 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

My own parents basically let their marriage deteriorate. A lot of it was performative to begin with, just a way of checking the boxes to reify the hierarchy they were so deeply invested in.

They wouldn't listen to each other, let alone listen to their kids. No wonder things went south.

All around them were plenty of couples who stayed in love for decades. The issues seemed very fixable for a while, and the damage was self-inflicted. It ended up seeming like common sense that "you only marry someone if you affirm each other to the core and you trust them as much as yourself", and that "having kids with someone you're not sure you would marry is a recipe for strained family units".

Picking a formalized life partner and bringing new life into the world are two of the most important decisions a human can make, but there is social pressure to get marriage and kids accomplished as a momentary self-gratification. It's done for the purpose of social status, and to have somebody to own, rather than as a lifelong project. People hurry into fucking someone they like the looks of, and tying the knot. No wonder so many marriages end up failing.

Granted, if people followed the simple sensibility of distinguishing love and commitment from infatuation, and having a child out of a place of generosity, there would be a lot less children coming into the world. But with over 8 billion of us, that's not such a bad thing.