Given today’s political climate do you regret having kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People have been having kids under far worse circumstances for many tens of thousands of years. Sorry the internet made you crazy OP.

Sorry the internet made you a douche PP.

No, you're wrong and PP is right.

Show me then. What’s the climate situation going to be in 2050? If you have an optimistic view, why? Convince me.

A CEO just said 50% of entry level jobs are going to be taken over with AI. What are your kids going to do for work? Is there going to be UBI? Legislation restricting it? The guillotine? Make me hopeful, if you’re so sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think i get what you are saying. It's not that i wish my kids didn't exist, I wish they existed in a better world than we are giving them. More than just the political climate, but also climate change and feeling like WallE is becoming our reality

Exactly. When we had kids the world wasn’t so fvked up.

But now we have the christofascists trying to burn everything down.

Disagree. It’s always been a dumpster fire. You’ve just never had to (temporarily) deal with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not much I can do now but I actively am telling my younger cousins and friends not to have kids.

Be careful with this. I would not spend time with such negativity. If I were your aunts/uncles I'd be upset.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, op. Responsible parents having children gives me hope for the future.

This. My kids are now thoughtful and caring adults in helping professions. They could eventually be your support!

[Anonymous]

I think these kids are going to change things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think these kids are going to change things.

+1. Gen Z is already trending as the most conservative generation in decades.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think these kids are going to change things.

I do too. The high schoolers I see and know are engaged and interested in life/the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Children are a blessing from God, regardless of the political climate.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t regret having my kids (14, 12, and 9) but if I was the age I was when I had my oldest I’d either have none or one. I do not have an optimistic view of the future given climate change (which we’re probably too late to stop), AI (seems like they won’t be able to get jobs), etc. It’s not all about politics, it’s just hard to envision the human race turning it around in the near term.

Chill out on OP, dudes. It’s not crazy or trollish to not want your kids to live through the Parable of the Sower. If you’re optimistic that we won’t end up like that, good for you. I think you’re wrong but I hope you’re right.

If humanity had this attitude, we’d have gone extinct thousands of years ago.

But, maybe this is natural selection at work. Those who can’t roll with life don’t reproduce.

That’s not how natural selection works, genius. It takes thousands of years. By which time we’ll have already made ourselves extinct with a bomb or nanobots or the evaporation of the oceans or something.

We’ve also never been able to have this much existential dread before. Under a few hundred years ago the human race was living hand to mouth and all our focus needed to be on food and shelter. Now we have time and technology and it’s made a lot of things better and a lot of things worse. If you can’t see the way we live now is a lot different than pre-1800 I don’t know what to tell you.

I think we’ve always had time for existential dread but I see what you’re saying.

I do think there is a genetic component though. There is a section of the population who find it easier to keep calm and carry on. There is also a section who go to Chicken Little. And everything in between. People are wired to think in certain ways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Recognize you are in one of the most tolerant, least racist societies to ever exist in the history of humanity. Yes, there are some issues, and perhaps the US is in decline with its over reliance on debt and dysfunctional political structure, but there is so much goodness all around you! Don't let life get you down. Enjoy the sunshine and the rain and your beautiful children. All humans have struggles. And, guess what? We're still here!

it’s amazing how many people don’t realize this. You have no idea how many countries have it so much worse. And like a pp stated-people never stop having kids no matter how things get. it’s a privilege to think you have it so bad/your kids will have it so bad when in other countries people are literally living every day in fear that they will be shot and killed. get over yourself.

[Anonymous]

No

[Anonymous]

I would not have had a third child if I’d known I’d never again have telework. It makes it so difficult to be present for them all.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the lack of empathy for this perspective, from some posters.

I don't regret having kids, but I understand the feeling of regret about not being able to give our kids a better world, or to give them better futures. For those who point out that things have always been rough: sure. I actually don't see how that changes anything . . . I don't think we're the first generation of parents who have regretted not being able to give our children better, either.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely not!

[Anonymous]

You could be living in medieval times, with plagues decimating your villages; old women getting burned at the stake; torture as regular punishment for crimes triggered by hunger and want; and fear so rampant that get any skin disease and you'd be run out of town as a leper, left to die in the wilderness.

But yes, please tell me how we have more existential dread NOW.

Humanity has never had it so good, despite entirely avoidable mass murders and starvation in certain parts of the world. And yet on the eve of every major technology change, people always have a crisis of faith in our ability to survive. It happened for electricity. For the new millenium. For so many of the novelties that turned into a normal part of our every day life.

GET A GRIP.