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.
Boomers hate literally everything except sitting on a dragon’s hoard of capital assets
When you hate everything while having everything.
Ehh that’s part of it maybe, but I think the main thing is no stable housing or social support networks. Also SO many more women are making the choice to stay single because they are legally able to exist without men and many men haven’t risen to the challenge of being worth living with. Regardless, if the gov’t offered UBI but only for people with kids, something like $1200 a month + $600 per additional child, no means testing, I think we’d see many more couples with kids.
Also SO many more women are making the choice to stay single nevause they are legally able to exist without men
There was a user on Hexbear a few years ago who pointed this out as the main reason birth rates have declined. There’s people living in worse conditions outside of the US who still have kids. Women have more options in the Imperial Core, so of course they don’t want to deal with men or having health problems from giving birth or missing out on their educations/careers or a dozen other reasons. When women don’t have to rely on being a mother for citizenship, of course there’s a decline in marriages and birth rates!
That person got shouted down and they deleted their account. A lot of he/hims not beating the allegations. I think about that person every time this conversation comes up.
Socialist countries have consistently had higher birth rates than culturally similar capitalist countries. Does that mean that women in capitalist countries are freer?
also 90% of breadwinner jobs now have college side gig pay (at least relative to skyrocketing housing costs and other costs of living)
because they are legally able to exist without men and many men haven’t risen to the challenge of being worth living with.
I think it’s more the latter than the former. Some people stay together for financial reasons but a majority of couples get together for the wrong reasons, and make a mess out of their domestic units.
I think it’s both, or less boomers would’ve stayed with their abusive husbands. Women couldn’t even have their own bank accounts till the 70s in the US. I’m not convinced men have changed, women have just realized they don’t have to put up with it.
Standards for living have gone down, and it’s normalized to have Nanny Telly watch the kids. These must be part of it too.
I don’t have kids because I am a goddamn mess and I don’t have enough mental fortitude to subject myself to the terrors of parentage
Which is a shame, because I love kids, kids are great
Until you have to worry about them getting hurt, or sick or in trouble or killed and my life is scary enough as it is
I feel this. I love kids but whenever people ask why I don’t have them I just tell them because alcoholism and I can barely keep myself alive.
man, I remember going to the beach one time and me and my sister sat in the living room while my parents fought in the bedroom for the whole weekend. Great lets just stay up here in the condo and not go to the freakin beach at all.
God my mom loved having random crashouts at my dad on vacation.
Don’t get me wrong my dad can be an asshole too but I think in her younger years my mom was one of those people who genuinely gets a rush out of drama and conflict and would just find excuses to get into fights about the most random bullshit.
it’s always just been climate change for me personally.
Can’t double click this enough. I can’t bear the thought of any kids dealing with that shit, let alone one I intentionally bring up.
I think for most it’s just really a consequence of the economy plus pregnancy being such body horror shit that IMO you’d have to REALLY want kids for it to be worth it
my parents actually got along pretty well, but they hated being parents, especially to any kids they had after 1982. The ones born before then get special treatment (still pretty bad all things considered, but they will step up to defend them in court and pay the lawyers,) while the rest of us either fear parenthood or strive to do better… although even then, the habits of our parents are hard to confront/ work through.
imagine their reaction to becoming grandparents – this went terribly. Well; the special treatment ones are fine, but the other ones not so much. They kind of hated those grandkids. One is an adult now and we both don’t speak to those individuals ✌️
It’s really trippy to me, because my in-laws are much better parents (low bar, they’re still shitty in some ways) and the most recent baby being born is actually being met with happiness and positive anticipation.
My sibling’s former in laws are even more discriminating, first kid my sibling had is showered with presents from the in laws, the second kid has largely been ignored.
Personally, it just seems like a much bigger decision than society
makes it out to bePretty shocking to realize that babies and kids are barely treated as human to a huge chunk of the population
My reactionary parents definitely soured marriage and parenthood for me. Ethically I barely feel comfortable with conditional pet ownership. Causing CPTSD in a child with a dysfunctional environment would be the most destructive thing I do in my life. Climate change is still my big deciding factor, but I’ve seen how those power dynamics fail and how the material stressors of both feed into those toxic dynamics. If I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t fall into the same trap I’m not willing to expose a kid to that risk.
At the same time, it’d be nice to be a positive influence for a kid. I’m not opposed to adopting if I’m in a stable long-term relationship with another communist and own a homestead. That child’s environment just has to be a sanctuary from an otherwise dehumanising society.
yea neither of my parents seemed to like me very much lol
This isn’t just a boomer thing, having kids just sucks. The weird pro-natalism / breeding fetish that some dudes on hexbear have only exists because they tacitly assume they will do the usual thing and unload most of the burden of parenthood on their wife.
this is a really weird, flattening PoV to take
i feel like i’ve seen enough women here lamenting their lack of uterus to say that this doesn’t reflect reality at all?
I want to, but I can’t, and even if I could I couldn’t bear to bring someone into a world like this.i feel like i’ve seen enough women here lamenting their lack of uterus to say that this doesn’t reflect reality at all?
I know there’s trans women who get extremely dysphoric about this, but i gotta be honest here, i’m glad i don’t have a uterus. Being a mother sounds like a nightmare and it creeps me the fuck out how defensive people get about this.
i mean it’s fine and good to be glad you don’t have something you don’t want (i’d personally rather get stabbed once a month than deal with periods) but it does appeal to other people and they’re not all men looking to dip out on the parenting
kinda makes sense that people get defensive when you characterize it that way ngl
I’ve never heard the weird stuff from trans girls dysphoric about this issue, the iffy to problematic takes have exclusively come from men.
The weird pro-natalism / breeding fetish that some dudes on hexbear have
Is this talking about something specific or just the fact that hexbear doesn’t allow anti-natalist posts?
I’ve seen people here get extremely weird about this issue. Just look at how this post has blown up. And honestly, i’ve seen much, much worse than this, outright entitled incel shit like “a society were women routinely choose not to have kids seems threatening to me.” Any time birthrates and parenthood come up, people crawl out of the woodworks to start this endless litany of how they’d have tons of kids if material conditions were better and … i don’t know how to say this kindly, it’s complete bullshit.
When you look at AES countries, places that had the best childcare in human history, absolute job security, super low costs of living, then no, it doesn’t work like that. The DDR is a perfect example. Everybody who has experienced it misses the childcare and education system of the DDR, they had a lot more women in the workforce than west Germany, raising kids was so much safer and easier and they still had lower birthrates than the west. People made a lot of use of the free and easily accessible abortion clinics and honestly, good on them. It’s not just economic insecurity that keeps people from having children. A lot of people genuinely do not want this. And given how much women in particular get pressured into seeing motherhood as a necessary condition for a happy and fulfilled life, i think it’s still not enough people who choose this.
Hexbears have to get it out of their heads that “anti-natalism” is a rightwing stance. In fact, “anti-natalism” is a nazbol dogwhistle to smear queer liberation and free abortion, people like Haz have used it this way for years and it still just gets thrown around here willy nilly, it’s sickening. The whole “ecofascism” thing people on here get workedup about is obviously abhorrent and eugenicist, but it is also an obscure, irrelevant position, an online oddity that has no real-world impact. Coercive pro-natalism is much more prevelant among reactionaries and is actually driving policies in imperial core and post-soviet countries. It’s time we course correct on these takes.
there’s a few things that get smushed together and hexbear usually isn’t always interested in disentangling them
ideological anti-natalism isn’t necessarily malthusian
not wanting to have kids usually isn’t grandly ideological
having a “normal” amount of kids usually isn’t grandly ideological (whatever normal means)
pronatalism is quiverfull shit and elon mailing his cum to people
there’s no moral imperative toward a certain human population number (unless you’re a voluntary extinctionist, 0, or a capitalist, infinity)
i could continue but my food is ready
When you look at AES countries, places that had the best childcare in human history, absolute job security, super low costs of living, then no, it doesn’t work like that. The DDR is a perfect example. Everybody who has experienced it misses the childcare and education system of the DDR, they had a lot more women in the workforce than west Germany, raising kids was so much safer and easier and they still had lower birthrates than the west
Makes sense. I would bet the influence of religious and other societal pressures to have a kid are far more influential than economic stability. Personally I can’t imagine having any kids before 30, I didn’t, and it’s still considered very late. How any of these 20-something parents I meet manage I’ll never know.
Hexbears have to get it out of their heads that “anti-natalism” is a rightwing stance. In fact, “anti-natalism” is a nazbol dogwhistle to smear queer liberation and free abortion, people like Haz have used it this way for years and it still just gets thrown around here willy nilly, it’s sickening.
I personally think the blanket ban on the topic is a relic of when it and childfree were subreddits that, in typical reddit fashion, became cesspits that used the term ‘crotch-goblin’ and such. I wasn’t aware of the nazbol connection as I don’t interact with that stuff at all but it is a troubling connection to consider.
If I had a kid I’d call them my “crotch goblin”.
Late GDR actually had higher birthrates than West Germany.
that rule is written because there is some depressing bozo philosophy called anti-natalism, which is not the same thing as being “against the hordes of natalists asserting you secretly want to have a baby or you’renot a real person”.
Who around here has ever said that if you don’t secretly want to have a baby, you are not a real person?
I didn’t say people were doing that here
Ah, my bad.
It’s hard. It’s tiring. It involves a lot of self reflection and emotional regulation. Stressful as all fuck. Annoying, too.
I wouldn’t say it sucks, though. I also certainly haven’t offloaded my share of the burden onto my wife, either.
The feelings of love and joy I have felt because of my offspring are stronger than any I felt before.
Not for everyone, though, of course.
Facts. I have one life that has already been delayed enough by waiting to transition. Why would I willingly sacrifice more of my life now that I’m on my own?
I want to spend this post transition era of my life with the people I care about and seeing more of the world. Adding kids into that equation is of no interest to me.
IMMENSE SAME
I mean I’ve met some people who genuinely do seem to love parenthood. They exist. But it does suck in a lot of ways and I don’t blame people for wanting to op out of it.
I think this needs some nuance. Having kids in the US especially is certainly very hard. On the whole though the positives dramatically outweigh the negatives. For me at least it is the greatest joy in life. But not without its drawbacks. My wife and I spend less time together. My health has suffered as I have less time for fitness.
Doing this without community support however is extremely difficult if not impossible. Taking care of a family consumes all your free time, and marriages suffer. No two ways about it. The relationship needs to be really strong to shoulder the burden alone.
If you have family to help that burden lightens considerably. Obviously if you are a single parent it’s much harder as well. It truly does take a village and in the US we have no village.
Still I wouldn’t trade being a father for anything in the world. I love my kids and raising them is my life’s most noble purpose.
What the fuck are you talking about? I would kill to be a house-husband. Kids are grotesque little demons and I love them so much.
That said, I worked far too many hours, kept my professional distance, and during my twenties was on rotating shifts, far too much to be able to meet someone and have kids. I could have just had more unprotected sex I guess, but I would kinda like a plan when doing this long-term stuff.
If I could unload all the burden (pregnancy) my partner and I would already have kids. I’m NEET from disabilities and would love to have a kid around to love/teach, but no uterus. My partner doesn’t want the body strain which is totally fine, but it’s gonna be several years before we will look adoption capable on paper. It sucks the most 'cause we’re living with parents currently and that’d be ideal for baby years but life doesn’t work out always.
for me its the pro-eugenics arguments, Ive never really used the term “anti-natalism” because the issue to me isnt the lack of desire of having kids, but the contempt for children in general and ire towards those having kids. Especially mutliply marginalized people, who get the brunt of “well maybe you shouldnt have kids if you cant afford one!” or “dont have kids if you’re disabled” to me, is a failure on a societal level – and also eugenics.
be me
have bad teeth, bad eyes, and a small mental illness starter collection that I’m still seeing a therapist for almost weekly at the age my dad had me
somehow manage to find a partner: “yeah, I know what pregnancy does to the body and I’m not a fan, what if we got a cat instead”
forced to buy into the Giant Scam Machine, the bottom of which might fall out at any minute, in order to have a hope of retirement
cat is the most adorable thing ever
study climate change adaptation and policy
struggle to find a job despite a gazillion college degrees
boomers are currently selling their houses for prices that can only be paid via dark bargains with rumplestiltskin
houses in question require a lot of work thanks to the all the deferred maintenance
yeah no I think I’m going to pass on the amazing opportunity to continue the human lineage, sorry ancestorsnever really been fiscally stable enough to do it nor have i ever been involved with someone i could imagine taking on that sort of responsibility with. ive met more people trying to co-parent with a shithead than partners or co-parents making it work.
i also took parents at their word about how difficult it is, and that made me more circumspect about evaluating a prospective partner. i have some friends that had kids and all they have to say is how hard it is and how they didn’t believe others who went before, when they said the same. kinda lame to think everybody else is just another candyass complainer.
so besides climate change and social collapse, really when i evaluate what i have to contribute to the future of the whole “humans on earth” experiment, my genetics are like not even in the top 10. i always get confused with other people anyway, so the traits are well represented in the population.
half my grandparents were dead before i was born, the other half died not long after. all from natural causes. ive been an educator and like working with kids and young people / teaching. i can steward natural resources to try and make sure there’s something left for a family to survive. im cool with that.
maybe if i grew up in a real country that didn’t actively try to convert humans into grist for the mill, it would have shaken out some other way, but I’m comfortable with my choices in this context and don’t weep for the lost futures of alternative histories.
except the Union of Soviets.
Compared to our parents, I think millennials had more autonomy and less social pressure (and less economic mobility) to “settle down and have kids” by a certain age. For me, my parents were part of a religion that expects marriage and children by the couple’s early 20s. My partner’s parents felt they were supposed to have kids by age 30, but weren’t especially interested in raising them with love and care. Between health issues and employment, my parents weren’t able to be as involved and provide enrichment for their kids as much as I know they wanted to.
I’ve got oodles of love and care to give, but this society sucks. I haven’t liked it since I became aware of how it operates; I’m not gonna force some innocent unsuspecting creature to live in this world every day. Ifwhen I’m emotionally ready I’ll explore human adoption, but for now, my unused parenting genes will be used on pets and plants
Just as a counterfactual I think one has to consider that given historical marriage arrangements this feels like it’d’ve been the norm for most of it and that didn’t stop people from recreating
Historically marriage was for working together, and kids were just a bonus. Now work is completely divorced from family, so people, who don’t really have any reasons to be together tend to get eventually divorced too.
Historically marriage was for working together
Was it really, though? I favor the explanation that across societies, marriage has always served as a foundation for families. And historically, with less geographic mobility and limited contraception, affairs were harder to keep secret, also with stronger religious structures there was more pressure toward monogamy.
There are enough love poems in antiquity oriented around marriage to be a clear trend. I think people have been marrying for infatuation since prehistory, but there has been a variable aspect of workability applied to it sometimes.
The family in traditional agrarian societies functioned as a smallest unit of production. Marrying for love was seen as “good as an ideal, but mostly unrealistic in practice” both in lower and upper classes. And kids were basically free labor for peasants. And monogamy wasn’t universal over the world, and even where it was dominant, it often had plenty of holdovers from the group marriage.
