I think it’s all breaking down, and I think it specifically has to do with how children are being handled. People in my generation are reaching the age that the urge to have children gets really strong, but where I live the conditions for children are so bad it still manages to hold most of us back. Also, my city is really xenophobic, so immigration isn’t going to solve our labor problem either.
and this is an issue because trying to have kids is the only purpose I have left. There’s no career, no huge projects, very little else to look forward to.
My wife and I were talking about it, and I brought up that the school system is currently being actively undermined by our state education officials. As in; our education secretary hate tweets local school staff and then radical righties issue bomb threats on those schools. It’s seriously threatening the ability to operate an education system. This is what happens when you elect……… people committed to burning it all down. I have worse words for that, I’m trying not to say them.
They’re defunding our schools to give tax cuts to the rich. I wish I was overstating it. All the qualified teachers are fleeing to places where they don’t have to endure bomb threats or buy their own classroom supplies.
and I get that it is politically adventagious in the short term. You need to villainize someone to keep the hate strong, but villainizing the people that keep things running seems really self destructive. How is their society going to go on without immigrants or children? Bunch of old racists circled together trying to keep the state running? Good luck with THAT.
I wish I could get out faster. I’m really scared that they’re going to succeed in destroying the local economy before I get out. I’ll get out regardless, if I have to hitch up my car to my truck with everything that fits in the two and fleeing to somewhere that doesn’t hate children, I’ll do it. I’d rather move to somewhere, stay housed and looked after.
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Humans will always continue to overbreed, you can bet on that. The problem you’re experiencing in the US (as well as many developed countries) is that the masses are being overworked and underpaid, and housing and costs are ever rising and rising. The elites that control our societies have made the conditions of actually having and rearing children too expensive and no time to care for them. Hence, the middle class are having less and less children. This is an especially HUGE issue in S. Korea and Japan. Overworked, underpaid, insane cost of living.
And yet somehow, the very poor keep popping out babies left and right. Hell, you still get crazy ass ppl in the US popping out 8 babies, or 20 kids like the duggars or whoever. You will always have these kind of ppl popping out babies like it’s a candy factory, so overall, the species will continue- no lack of underpopulation. But yes, it already is- idiocracy- the poor and dumb will outbreed the smart. Maybe humanity is already doomed.
In your particular case- while I understand your desire to have a purpose- the conditions are not suitable for you to have children at the current moment. You’d also have to have enough of an income to support a child. And you won’t be able to do it well with just your wife’s income (even if you were to get disability). It’s a hard life for the child and for you guys if there’s isn’t a lot of money. I mean, having a kid is way more expensive and time consuming than most people realize.
Hey, I’m not saying to not have children bc it’s your life- BUT the conditions as it is- with the school system, underfunding, etc- is just not conducive to having children, which is why most middle class couples are choosing not to, or have less children.
If you want to have children, realistically, I think you’d have to save up enough money, sell the house, and move to some 3rd world country. Education is most 3rd world countries are WAY better than in the US. Life is good in a 3rd world country if you have the money to live a good life there. I mean, what you’d want is to make USD but live in a 3rd world country. O_o
I know you feel the need to have children, so please take me with a pinch of salt and feel free to disregard what I say…afterward.
Education destruction, political schemes to make the rich richer while millions of children bear the consequence, good teachers fleeing deplorable working conditions. This can be the beginning of my list of reasons spanning from my country to the US of why not to have children. This world is a horrible, terrible (insert more detestable adjectives) ..place.
How i see it:
10 000 years of pure violence on a planet of life that ust murder to survive gives rise to > War, money, billionaires, climate collpase, student loans and useless degrees, job shortages, peer pressure, industrial food, advertising, fake news, social media bullying, bullying, police state, old age, and in my case inferior genetics,
These are just some of the reasons I have decided I’ll never have children …ever…with vehement conviction.
Before even getting to how I cannot even look after myself properly let alone being a parent.
I realise there is joy, good times and much to behold in having children, but for me personally, I cannot thank my parents for a life in a world like this.
Again it’s my thoughts, i’m not here to judge anyone’s decision, for you have the right to choose the path of your life.
It’s against my better judgement, no doubt at all, to have children. Holding off untill later is the best I can do, this is the one irrational urge I have found there is no placating.
It’s an ego thing, and perhaps part of the destructive power of ego. I come from two families, one that’s barely been hanging on over the past century, and the other that has enjoyed the kind of security most people dream of. As a result, I have a legacy to protect, a heritage. Not in any kind of xenophibic or supremicist way, I think the rest of the world will go on as it does,
but there is no better assurance of being remembered. My granddad made it to 96, and by that point he’d become a focal point of hundreds of lives, and influenced thousands. In terms of not being a celebrity, not achieving fame, I’ve never known a man more impactful.
and I’ve looked after other people’s kids for a fair amount of my life. I spent a lot of time and energy learning how to nurture and care for a developing human. On those other people’s kids, I don’t get to see where that goes. I hope somewhere good.
but it’s a selfish thing, an irrational thing, wanting some part of myself, of my mind to carry on long after I rot. As far as kids being expensive, it depends. Yes, if you have a child with a lot of medical needs, or if you must work while raising a child, expensive as hell especially if both.
but if you can cook, and do a little creative work with the expenses, it’s doable for anyone with the will and the skill.
It’s just this damn biological clock is ticking loud lately. I don’t want to end up old and alone…. I want grandkids to look after. Life is so damn short, and the world sucks. I’m clinging onto my last bit of light and hope, because that’s what kids are. They’re hope, you look at them and hope they don’t make the mistakes you did. Hope they have time to do better.
It’s the only thing, apart from my love and support, left I can give my family. My career is dead, I won’t be sponsoring any amazing vacations. I won’t be buying anyone nice cars. Economically, socially, I feel like dead weight. And maybe even this is illusion, and my idea that having some little ones of my own would redeem my lousy story is a futile and ill fated fantasy.
it’s a better idea than grad school, and not many things are these days. I have some will, some effort left to give, and I want it to matter. I’ve given away so much, chased so many dead ends, if it can’t come to some satisfying end I might go crazy. Well, crazier.
I understand, whichever path you choose, I wish you the very best and I believe you can ace it.
You give a few really good points for having kids though, real reasons that come from within and although there is ever environmental and social influence pushing one to having kids, your take on it and admittance of flaws shows an authenticity we seldom see from people today.
I must mention time and monetary expense though, it is very demanding so far as I can see. Also, to a point, there is a lottery of attributes, especially when well intending parents just end up with demon spawn, or as you mentioned a kid struck with ill fated health.
But for me, I’ll not give this world the pleasure of a nother victim to be taxed, enslaved, programmed and controlled. However, you provide a good counter when perhaps the only way to make the world better, is to keep the generations coming in the hope that one of them will break the curse so to say.
Yup, there’s very little long-term planning in a representative democracy. People care about tax cuts/economic growth in the short-term. If that results in a society that deters them from having enough children to avoid demographic collapse… that’s a tomorrow problem.
I don’t know to what extent immigration currently offsets that in the US. It seems to me that relying on that will lead to generations of aging and alienated geriatrics with little to no stake in the society they leave behind. Being cared for/supported by younger people from different cultures (with possibly different values), with no familial ties and no reason to respect them or treat them well. Sounds like a recipe for social division and conflict to me. But whatever. “There is no alternative.”