[rbavocadotree]

My good friend, as well as my Mom are family/young child psychologists, and they talk about people like you a lot.

How's your mental health? People with negative self images, underdeveloped personalities, unresolved trauma, anxiety, depression, etc, are all very likely to have those same feelings. They may be telling you something.

[dang]

Please don't cross into internet psychiatric diagnosis on HN. Even though your intentions are good, comments like this are more likely to land as personal attacks than anything supportive.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[overflow897]

Are you implying that if you don't want or don't enjoy having children, you have mental health issues?

[djsumdog]

I've often encountered people who've told me that my desire to not have children is immoral in some way; that I'm being selfish. It's not a perspective I agree with at all, and I know several other people with kids (that they wanted to have) tell me there is nothing wrong with not wanting kids.

I've heard people make a moral case for having children, but I've never heard people implying others are mentally ill for not wanting them.

It does get into deeper questions about what are mental illnesses; how some illnesses warp our perception and cause delusions, but others are just things we've socially evolved to think as unacceptable because they cause harm. Homosexuality was once a mental illness, and now it's not.

Maybe if Earth's population takes a big hit and we're under 1 billion again, I could see some case to be made for society to adopt procreation above all else; but today .. we've moved past that .. and I agree; not wanting children or regretting having children is not a mental illness at all!