[Aurornis]

> but pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.

It's common in some tech and upper middle class bubbles, but outside of some startups and a few VHCOL cities most of the 40+ people in tech I encounter have families.

I think the mindset is most popular in internet bubbles like Reddit. Reddit went mainstream a decade ago and many people in their 30s and 40s grew up reading a lot of Reddit. Reddit cleaned up their popular subreddits list years ago, but for a while subreddits like r/childfree were constantly in everyone's default feeds. Redditors would talk about people who had kids as "breeders" as a derogatory term and treat them like they'd made terrible decisions with their lives.

I didn't realize how much this carried over into the real world until my friends and I started having kids. I knew a few people who treated our decisions like we were making terrible mistakes and throwing our lives away. I still encounter people from younger generations who are confused when I say that I like spending time with my kids. They can't imagine how that would be enjoyable in any way. When you grow up with your chosen social media telling you that the smart people are maximizing their bank accounts, minimizing their responsibilities, and doing as little as possible to get there, they can't fathom how someone could be happy with kids.

[somenameforme]

I don't understand why people, generally on both sides of the issue, just ignore the social effects of it and instead just focus on the personal. I suspect most don't intuit how rapidly fertility shifts population sizes, because it's an exponential. A fertility rate of 1 means each generation decreases by more than 50%, compounding. So after just 5 generations and your generational size is down 97% with your population doing the exact same, staggered out by a few decades.

And fertility determines not only the size of a population, but even the age ratios within that population. Low fertility means you end up with far more elderly than you do working age. Far from this vision of being a society with more for everybody, we'll be creating societies where labor is ever-more scarce, economies are primarily dedicated to helping sustain the elderly and simultaneously collapsing at the same time. It's not going to be pretty.

For these reasons, and many others, I think the social aspect is one of the most important. Self fulfillment and these other things are very important and good, but if we don't have children then we're going to be creating some pretty messed up societies for our descendants. We're likely going to get to see this play out in South Korea during our lifetimes. And I do wonder what their descendants will think of the South Koreans of today.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

Western societies solve that problem by letting in immigrants. I'm not sure what SK or Japan are going to do though.

[abc123abc123]

I find the polarization of the child/no-child discussion revolting. One side poo-poo:ing on the other, have a child? Breeder! The other poo-poo:ing back... no child, you f*cking egoist, I'm happy your gene line dies out.

Personally I am of the opinion that everyone is entitled to their own life, and that the default assumption should be that they make conscious decisions in line with their own preferences.

Have a child? Great, but don't complain to me about early mornings and stress... you knew that before you had one. No child? Go for it! But don't complain to me about loneliness and lack of purpose.

I'm leaning towards the no child camp myself. I love my long morning, and complete lack of some little createurs (rightful) demand on my time. Yes, I won't have the pleasure of seeing that little creature grow up, and I might have a lonelier old age (but there's plenty of social settings I can inject myself into), but that's life. There's advantages and disadvantages to everything.

The trick is to find out which ones you like more.

[foobarian]

It strikes me that both these views are selfish, in that they focus on direct impact on one's life. But what about the broad impact on society for the descendants? What if by abdicating procreation we create conditions where only communities that force childbearing survive? Ought we not figure out a system where we can have both freedom and equality, as well as a sustainable population?

[nunez]

Same. My wife and I very much enjoy being child-free in our late-30s, but we avoided joining child-free groups to avoid the "parents are breeders" crowd.

[littlexsparkee]

Agreed except people encounter loneliness and lack of purpose for reasons besides choosing not to have kids and doing so is absolutely not guaranteed to resolve those feelings - you can build community, engage in service, etc

[sublinear]

I am about to hit 40 soon and have an alternative take on all that. I agree reddit was and still is a very toxic echo chamber, but the rest of us who have avoided having kids shouldn't be lumped in with those people.

I came from a big family and grew up somewhat poor watching remorseful adults who didn't recognize the gravity of bringing a life into this world, let alone several, basically drink themselves to death to cope.

My social life is mostly offline and I enjoy helping people in any way I can, but I am fully aware of my own flaws. I find balance by being generous in what seems like a million other ways I might not have the energy or time for if I had a family. To each their own.

[graemep]

You seem to be polarising the choices. You do not have to have a big family or no kids at all. I have two kids.

For the vast majority people nothing else they can do with their lives will be anywhere near as fulfilling as having children. There are exceptions, of course, but it takes something like an unusual personality, or a great commitment to something else (e.g. celibacy in religious orders etc.), or something else really fulfilling.

I strongly suspect that someone who has the sense of responsibility that you have about children would make a great parent and not do what you grew up with.

[chasd00]

I said this in a different comment but the real key is just knowing what’s right for you. Knowing yourself is actually very hard though.

[abc123abc123]

This is the way!

[tokioyoyo]

Yeah, everyone I know who doesn’t have a child/not planning to have zero connection to Reddit or anything online. Tldr is, people find fulfillment without children easier nowadays. And as they watch other going child free or 1-2 children, they realize that life is possible nowadays.

[lukan]

"Tldr is, people find fulfillment without children easier nowadays"

Do they? Or have most just become too distorted to feel allright filling their emptiness with empty online debates and netflix?

I know people who are really happy without kids (and who will never have them), but the majority is rather miserably lonely when you look past the facade. And with many, there isn't even a facade.

[martopix]

I think this is an oversimplification of a much more general social phenomenon. In much of the world, the mainstream social message is still that kids are what you should get your life's purpose and fulfillment from. Maybe not so much for men, but very much so for women. There is a reaction to that social expectation, which is independent of Reddit (it's true even in China etc).

I'm myself very happy I don't have children. I'm gay and can't adopt in my country, so I'm also happy I don't have any desire to have children, because that would be a problem. However I do really like working with teens, and it's very important to me on a gut level.