Do you wonder and are you concerned about what the world will be like for your children, relatives or other young people in future decades, presuming they'll be around long after you're gone?

I’m not worried (not beyond a degree of natural worry that anyone should have for their children or young loved ones), if that’s what you’re asking.

Yes. Most times it scares me if I can say so. It’s gonna be really bad. :(

Yes, but the world always has been and always is going to be a different place. It was a different place a hundred years ago, a lot worse in a whole lot of ways, and it’s going to be a different place a hundred years from now. Maybe a lot better; maybe a lot worse. Who knows?

This was the definitive conclusion in my decision not to have kids, not forgetting a world full of religion,violence & hate….. What sort of a parent would I be to force my offspring into such a world full bigotry & one-upmanship…… :-/

It’s the main reason I don’t want children. No way I am going to be responsible for bringing a life into this fucked-up world.

I don’t have kids myself so, once again, I have not particular axe to grind in this area, but if the human race stopped having children simply because they didn’t want to bring them into a fucked up world we would have died out millennia ago. The world is fucked up! It is now and it always has been. It’s just fucked up in different ways, depending on the century.

“but if the human race stopped having children simply because they didn’t want to bring them into a fucked up world we would have died out millennia ago.”

No big loss, in my opinion.

Yes, I worry about that fairly often. I have done just about everything I know to do to pave the way for them, but I know it’s not enough. Beyond that, all I can do is pray for them.

I worry about my kids dealing with global climate change and the huge increase in worldwide population.The population problem is already an issue with food scarcity.

I have faith in the young people of tomorrow. We have lived through a lot, and they will too.

No. What about young adults now? I’m only 25, so I have a long way to go and try to make it in this crap lol.

I have what I consider a healthy amount of concern, that which would drive me to clean up my own messes. But I’m optimistic that the generations to come will be smarter than those who came before them, and I think the world of 2099 will be vastly different from what we know today. I look forward to welcoming my grandchildren into the world. Should my screen name be Pollyanna?

The way I see it, things will go one of two ways, the world will either be a big steaming pile of crap, or a semi-utopia with scary authoritarian and commercial aspects.

So far I’m leaning towards steaming pile of crap, so the answer would be a yes.

Wow, a lot of downers on this thread. There are always reasons to be pessimistic but there are also good reasons to be optimistic as well. If you look at the world of a hundred years ago, things were pretty bleak. World wars, the great depression just around the corner, totalitarian governments spring up, life expectancy about 50 years.

Today we’re looking at solving the problem of aging, scientists have just measured particles moving faster than the speed of light opening the possibility of real space travel. Hell, there’s a lot to be excited about. Yes we have the threat of nuclear holocaust but we’ve been living with that for more than fifty years. I see a very bright future for mankind.

Not really. When I think of all my grandparents survived with the wars, the Great Depression, the lack of the medical technology we have now, etc.I tend to think they’ll do just fine. A hundred years ago my husband wouldn’t have survived the injury that left him paralyzed, maybe in a 100 years someone else can not only survive, but keep on walking. I had a friend who never wanted to have children because she didn’t want to bring them in to this messed up world. I always wondered, if we don’t have children who is gonna fix this messed up world.

No. It’s going to be what it’s going to be.
I don;t spend energy on “furturizing.”
It’s the same as it has always been, adapt or die.

I do hope we find a way to preserve nature before the concrete jungle absorbs every non-human life form.

Yes I do. I worry about long term things like environmental degradation and climate change particularly. I don’t worry about the stock market, that will go up and down a million times

I don’t have kids so, to be honest, the world beyond my time in it doesn’t concern me all that much though a harmonious, reasoned, and sustainable legacy holds appeal. I do however find it more than a bit sad that people who have kids wouldn’t care or would continue to put their own self-interest at the forefront when it means leveraging their kids future to do so – particularly when faced with a clear choice.

Yes, I think about this often but I don’t think our society does. It doesn’t look further ahead than three or four years. We think about the stocks and shares we will leave to our children but rarely consider the world they will inherit. We are very short sighted that way. I find it a little odd.

As other people have posted, I have an ordinary amount of concern, but there’s really not a hell of a lot I can do about it. I teach my children to respect others by being kind and the planet by doing things like recycling.

I hope they will have happy productive lives in their chosen fields. My son is busy studying for the ASVAB for the army. I have a daughter in high school who’s a theater technician and loves it and hopes to get into the technical side of making movies. And I have another daughter in intermediate school who is still blossoming. There’s no telling what she’ll end up doing.

We have problems in our world, but we also have a lot of opportunity. Global climate change and economic woes can bring us closer together instead of driving us apart. There are individuals who are doing a great deal of good on a wide scale. Former President Jimmy Carter has centered much of his efforts on eliminating some diseases from tropical climates. I’m sorry. I forget which diseases. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is doing much the same thing. There are a lot of people doing a lot of good.

Scientifically, we are making great strides towards understanding our universe. There’s this example, which never ceases to amaze me.

It’s a great time to be alive.

Honestly, what I worry about most is the fact that my children will not know anyone who lived through WWII. I’ve met Holocaust survivors and talked with soldiers who fought in WWII so even though I never experienced anything firsthand, I experienced the fear and the sense of urgency firsthand. My children will only have second-hand stories and their children third-hand, so on and so forth.

I don’t think this world is super fucked up, like so many people seem to think, but I worry that without first-hand accounts of WWII which, in my opinion was the most world-rocking war ever it could happen again. Madmen and blood-thirsty tyrant already hold sway in many parts of the world, but none got so far as Adolph Hitler. Without those first-hand accounts, who’s to say someone else won’t be able to get that far again?

Aside from that, I think this is a beautiful world and I cannot wait to bring children into it.

@KatawaGrey have you seen the work of the Shoah Foundation? It is pretty cool stuff and an awesome way to make sure our children never forget. I met one of the crew who shared stories of speaking to and filming Holocaust survivors and he got so emotional while he shared his experience that it touched almost as deeply as I was touched when I met a survivor in person and heard her story. I agree whole-heartedly that everyone should be exposed to these stories along with the stories of WWII vets.

Yes. I used to worry a little too much and if had a hand in my choice to not have children.

I worry of course, I think we parents should all worry to a degree, it’s part of caring for our children. But 23 years ago people tried to talk me out of having a child for some of the reasons that some of the posters up there have decided to not have children, and I feel now the way I felt then, that children are about hope, and that it is a good thing to bring children into the world. There are problems, sure, but basically I love the world! Life is wonderful, given the chance!

Yes, I worry and we all should worry. My parents worried when they started having children (65) years ago, and we survived. I have a feeling our children will too. Life will always be different for each generation and each generation learns to adapt.