PS: The point here is NOT that poor people shouldn't have kids, it's that no one should be having kids without having the basics of childcare covered, which necessitates widespread systemic, societal, and economic change so that no parent needs to worry about those basics, and kids can grow up in secure, healthy environments. I completely forgot to mention this when I originally posted it, and that's my bad.
Having children is biologically safest for parents and children at younger ages. Having children young isn’t the issue. Having a system that hoards wealth for a master class at the expense of society is. We need to abort the billionaire class - it shouldn’t exist. Resource hoarding creates poverty.
i think a good question to ask yourself is: would you like to be born in today's time? if not, then probably neither does your child.
Well the main reason you shouldn't have kids is because this world is going down to shit at an accelerating pace.
Between climate collapse, life extinction, resources exhaustion and AI dystopia, where do you see your kids in 20, 30, 40 years? Dead from starvation? Enslaved by oligarchs? Can you see a good life fort them in the horizon?
My kid is a teenager and I already feel like she's living the best of their life already. From their adult life, I can only see it go down.
Personally, I think future generations are fine as long as they apply themselves and hobby hop and as long as we reinforce and appreciate the tenacity behind their hobby hopping.
When I was growing up there was no 3D printing, you weren't able to just make a dropshipping hobby and advertise on youtube like it was fucking nothing, I think twitch was just becoming a thing but the amount of money and influencers wasn't like it is now, hell influencers weren't a thing. It also looks like people adapt easily in today's world. I'm not worried about anything, they all have their adaptations and ways of doing their lives and that's fine.
I think it's good to leave a door of hope open for the next generations.
But as I've always said: What could get worse, can always get better. 😀
Thinking about childrens' futures breaks my heart
So the most selfish thing that people can do... is only available to the impoverished?
The most selfish thing that the system can do is let children live in poverty.
Fuck this billionaire bootlicking bullshit.
Stating that it's fucked up to bring a child into this world that you cannot materially provide for is not billionaire boot licking bullshit. I'm guessing you're one of the poor people that's having kids that you can't materially provide for or you wouldn't be taking it so personally. If you cannot materially provide for your children you're an unfit parent. Why are you advocating for unfit parents to have children? Why do you want children to suffer?
PS: The point here is NOT that poor people shouldn't have kids,
You may not think that's the point, but that is the ultimate effect of your words.
I'd see it more like "Poor people shouldn't exist".
But as in "We need a society where nobody is considered poor and everybody is provided for"
No, this interpretation is too convenient for them.
Stop creating lives you're knowingly unprepared to provide for.
This is a personal indictment, not a systemic one. It specifically treats births as the problem, not wages.
I do not have children, nor do I plan to—I have way too many video games to play. However, I am not so stupidly suicidal as to suggest that it is morally superior of me to be a zoo panda—or to pretend that it is global warming stopping me from participating in the same desperate struggle for life that my great ancestors did when driving their feet through mud and soil to chase antelope.
This is far too much "breeding is a privilege for the rich" for my tastes. Touch too much Eugenics.
"Just don't have kids" is a horrible solution.
"fix the system so people can make their own choices about having kids" is the actual solution.
Thats the point of the post. The user calling out "selfish is doing too much work" is saying that its not the individual who is to blame, its society.
if you look at destructdisc’s post history that is definitely not the point. they are a childfree instagram edgelord hot take monger.
This discussion is hard and society is still not ready for it.
There are absolutely a lot of people that should not be bringing children into this world.
If as a society we're going to say "it's a fundamental right to breed", then we need to fucking fix society so that every child brought into this world is guaranteed the opportunity for success. That means universal public healthcare, universal public education through college, universal access to nutrition...just to start.
Our current system is nothing like that. Once a kid is born today, if their parents suck then they're just fucked, and maybe that kid should have tried being born to better parents.
"Poor people should go extinct"
I mean considering the alternative is they don’t have access to food, housing, healthcare, and are essentially forced by circumstance to either become criminals or throw themselves into the meat grinder.
Now I don’t even like arguing this anymore since reproductive rights in my neck of the woods have gone away, but you can’t seriously think that giving a kid a miserable, painful life is better than not having a kid at all
I can, actually. Mostly because even growing up in poverty is rarely just a "miserable, painful life" even somewhere like Burkina Faso but also because collectively providing for the next generation is a thing that we should be constantly pushing for, culturally and publicly. Because without a future there is nothing to fight for, without youth there is nobody to care for the old, without fresh eyes there is no passion for change.
Unironically, yes. So should rich people. If we do that one first we can do the other one pretty easily.
One way or the other isn't that the goal? We should lift people out of poverty right? Why should poverty persist?
We absolutely should but that's a conversation for a future-minded community.
Ever notice these conversations always center around the poor. Articles and comments never scold the rich for not providing loving or mentally and emotionally healthy environments for their children. They can produce little affluent sociopaths all day every day and it's cool because they have money. As long as they aren't actively and visibly abusive to their children they'll never lose custody (and sometimes not even then). But the poor regularly have their kids taken for not having enough resources while we tisk tisk them for the crime of not being born privileged.
This was a better point (in the US) before Roe v Wade got overturned honestly
Which is why child welfare is so important
The issue here is that in a proper society, child care is a societal burden and not just a personal one. Meaning that in a proper society, both the rich and the poor can raise children properly and not let the child suffer.
Imagine a society where only the rich reproduce... That is arguably just as fucked up just in a different way.
There's a reason why wild animals frequently don't reproduce in captivity.
Humans don't tend to do it very well either.
The point here is NOT that poor people shouldn't have kids, it's that no one should be having kids without having the basics of childcare covered
That's just false. It's literaly what the last sentence says. Otherwise they would advocate for child welfare instead.
Im never having kids because I cant afford them, sure, but that doesn't mean you ought to have to pay to live, if the world were different I'd have children in a heartbeat
the op argument is a pathway to eugenics, child removal, and punishing people for living
also the doctor who did my vasectomy literally said if you have kids, you tend to figure it out as he completed the procedure lol
Well poor people should NOT have kids, because kids are not a good that you have to suit your needs.
Growing up poor stunts you severely. Make a good nest egg first.
No I understand it. Thinking further than yourself and thinking that government assistance and family will help you out. Diapers and formula are expensive. School, school supplies. The clothes they need as they grow, the food they're gonna need, the potential therapies that may be needed. Doctors appointments that sometimes insurance doesn't cover. Then you might have a child born with an incurable disease that you might give your whole financial being trying to treat.
The amount of emotional availability that's needed, the patience and god forbid they die!!!! Plus it's a lifetime thing it never ends they don't turn 21 and leave you forever it's a forever thing. If you're still in contact with your parents, how many people are in their mid 30's who are still on good terms with their parents? Who do you still call or go to when all goes to shit?
Like fuck man!!!!
No I will not attempt to provide a life to something. Hell I can hardly afford myself. If I could provide financial reliability and if I wasn't in the living situation I'm in now, maybe but even still, I don't have that emotional expenditure and I know I'm not meant to raise a human and I'm okay with that.
I like being able to do whatever I want whenever I want, spending money on myself and I am a very detached person sometimes..... I wouldn't ever want to create an offspring only to know the life I would be able to provide isn't of sufficient quality.