Do any other young people (40 and younger) grapple with the ethics of starting a family?

My wife is 41 and kids are not off the table yet. Think of all the crap humans have been through and yet we are still here.

@ARE_you_kidding_me True, I sometimes tell myself that too and it does make me feel better. I’m also wondering if I can push my reproductive years further with a healthy lifestyle so we can wait to have kids until we are more financially confident.

My grandmother had all three of her children after 40 and smoke and drank and is now 98 and reasonably okay. But I’m not sure if I’m willing to risk it or if I’ll have the resources to obtain medical intervention should we have fertility issues…

It’s a dilemma.

I’m 34 and we’ve decided to abandon a very long and trying attempt at getting pregnant (I have infertility) because of the current political situation and my concerns about the long term effects environmentally, economically and socially. Granted, my family is at risk of feeling a hard financial squeeze as a direct result of the current administration, as well, so that is a bigger factor.

@ANef_is_Enuf Sorry to hear that. I know this isn’t an easy time for a lot of people. :-/

LOL. The 70’s were hardly good economic years. Try 20% 15-year mortgages on homes for first-time home buyers. Not a good time to start a family.

I grew up in a large family and never had the urge to have kids. My siblings had the kids for me. I married a woman who just happened to feel the same and, because of this, we were able to both have meaningful careers, cars and homes when and wherever we wanted, a lot travel and a nice, quiet lifestyle. I have some very delightful nieces and nephews, watched them grow up, helped some of them through school, never had to deal with the really rough shit and, in return have a passel of children out there that love me to death. And now the great nephews and nieces are starting to show up.

While my siblings were struggling to ensure their retirement packages while at the same time trying to put their kids through college, I was free to work disasters along with my career in research and sailing on my 33 foot sailboat with my wife and those same kids. It’s been a really good life. And there has been no shortage of children in it.

@Espiritus_Corvus That sounds wonderful. Good for you!

Yes, I feel that having children is taking an unacceptable risk on another person’s life.

This piece about a letter that Margaret Mead wrote to her sister Elizabeth is heartening. I was told, often, that my struggles to have children were irresponsible, considering the state of the world. But my feeling has always been, who will change the world for the better if not our children?

For so many of us, having children made us the better people we wanted to raise our children to be. More aware, more activist, more compassionate. I have never, not even for a second, regretted my hard-pondered decision to become a parent.

@canidmajor “But my feeling has always been, who will change the world for the better if not our children?”

ah, the transgenerational passing of the buck. It’s been going on for millennia.

@canidmajor I agree with you and Margaret Mead 100%. Although the state of the world at the time my wife and I decided not to have children had a small part in that decision, the real reason we decided against it was because our intended lifestyles wouldn’t be appropriate for children—and unhappy and unprepared parents make unhappy children that further curse the world.

@cinnamonk That is hardly passing the buck and you know it. You are wallowing in pure bullshit if you really think that.

@cinnamonk Oh, do read the entire post before voicing your smug disdain.

@canidmajor every parent thinks their child is going to change the world for the better, and look where we are now.

I see I should have kept my mouth shut. Oh well, hate on.

Yep. I’m 43 and I decided not to have children in my early 30’s. The longer I live the happier I am with the decision I made. I think it’s selfish to have a child (All reasons to have a child are selfish.) in this overpopulated, polluted, violent world, which just keeps getting worse, when there are plenty of needy children who need good homes.

I agree with @cinnamonk.

@cinnamonk: Did you really not understand the content of my second paragraph? I really thought it was pretty clear.

But I find it interesting that you think you know what “every parent” thinks. That leads me to believe that you don’t have children.

@canidmajor my first comment would have told you that, actually.

I think many people grapple with such issues. My parents did, and I wasn’t planned, and that was just considering their view of the world and the not-so-great politics in the 1960’s. I’d say the situation looks much worse now, in some ways (I think corporate domination and disastrous global climate change and cultural stupidification (especially in the USA) are more frightening than the Cold War was), and yet in some ways also better (culture and thought and awareness are developing in new and good (and ancient-true) ways for many people).

Oh, and my parents were glad they did have me, and I’ve almost always been glad to be alive, but our reproduction rate is low and slow.

I think the reduced birth rate among educated people corresponds to this, as well as to the choice of many women to focus on other things besides motherhood.

@cinnamonk

Where are we? Is the nuclear clock still at one minute to twelve? Are our most popular liberal politicians and activists being assassinated left and right? Does Pittsburgh still look like this, this and this at high noon on a bright summer day? Does San Francisco Bay still smell like a toilet as far out as Walnut Creek? Does the Ohio River in Cincinnati still catch fire every decade? When was the last time you heard of anything as disastrous as the Great Smog of London that took over 4,000 lives directly on December 8th, 1952 and a cumulative 12000 lives within a few months. Or the 1948 Donora, Pennsylvania disaster. Out of a total population of 14,000 people, 20 die, 600 others become ill, and 1400 seek medical attention.

I remember driving into LA from the desert on I-10 in 1973. At about Riverside, the smog was so thick that you couldn’t see beyond the windshield and all the trees in the median were dead. These things were normal, everyday events in the 19th though the mid twentieth centuries.

My generation had the first national Earth Day in 1969 to promote awareness that these were all preventable man-made disasters—most people, believe it or not, didn’t know that. This eventually produced the EPA and many improvements have occured since then.

That is just one area that a succeeding generation improved the world.

Now it’s time for you to get up off your whiny ass and take your turn at wheel. There is still a lot of work to do.

@Espiritus_Corvus I’m not interested in a fight with you so I’ll let your character-smearing comments pass. But just because life was shittier in the past doesn’t mean it’s not shitty now.

It also doesn’t mean that it’s not enormously unfair to foist the responsibility of improving the world upon children who never asked to be born and who never asked to be burdened with that responsibility.

I was 40 when my wife and I tied the knot.
(Yes, @Espiritus_Corvus, we did get married!)

I had always hoped to have children, but it was not a deal-breaker for marriage. My wife didn’t necessarily want to have children; her hysterectomy a few years later (for medical reasons) led us to believe and accept that our lives would be childless other than nephews, nieces and friends’ children. That changed, though, when my we became guardians of 8-year-old twins. And five years later we adopted a newborn (all three children’s birth mother was a close relative).

My point is that you don’t need to bear children to love and raise them. There are many many children in need of a loving home from temporary fostering to permanent adoption.

@Espiritus_Corvus Mhmm, good points… but this is the first time we’ve faced the possible eventuality that some of the most populated places in the world may become uninhabitable due to climate change, while blatantly-corporate-owned politicians and so-called journalists facetiously argue that climate scientists’ climate change warnings may be part of some sort of conspiracy.

At least in the 1960’s they were still trying to have the politicians and journalists seem intelligent and make sense. I’d take Eisenhower over Trump, Bush, Reagan, or Hillary Clinton.

I have sooo many nieces and nephews that we end up watching that I’m not sure if I would know the difference if I had my own or not.

Congratulations, Strauss! LOL. Hugs to Cheryl.

I struggle with this a lot. I believe the world is grossly overpopulated already and that my genes are not genes that need to be spread. I also don’t personally feel any kind of strong need to be a mother either. Given all of these things put together, I would probably pass up having kids if it were just my decision. But I’m currently with a man who very much wants kids, and I want to stay with him, so I am probably having kids.

The good news for me is that he respects my one very firm rule which is that I will not be pregnant. I am open to us having kids but I am not open to ever being pregnant. So this means that we’re likely to have kids that aren’t genetically mine, which alleviates my concern about my genes. If we go the adoption route then that alleviates my other ethical concerns too. But I think he wants genetic children, which I guess would mean getting a surrogate, which means we’re still contributing to overpopulation.

We’ll see how things shake out. Neither of us wants to go there for quite a few years still, so we have time to talk it over.

@Zaku You’re right. It’s a bitch. As a sailor on the water since the 1970’s, I see the effects of climate change, oil spills and leaks, the huge dead zone that spreads for over a hundred miles from the Mississippi delta into the Gulf. Sick dophin pods, dead estuaries, poorer fishing grounds. The rising shoreline. I see it.

I’ve been fighting a lot of this and other shit since Nixon. We’ve made some headway, but are losing in other areas. It is important to remember the victories, though. It helps one to fight longer and harder. LOL. I never thought it could get worse than Nixon. Then came Reagan. Then Bush, Jr. And now… fuck I’m tired. I worry that the next generations are too soft, afraid to fight, afraid of a little ad hominem—and it really pisses me off at times.

How the fuck are you supposed to win against a bunch of self-entitled bullies unless you are willing to fight like a sonuvabitch? How do you think these fucks got here in the first place? Like all predators, they sense weakness, and they interpret civility as weakness. I just wonder when the next generations will wake up to that.

Not at all. I’m 49 and always wanted children, never had them, fertility and health problems, and it’s something I feel I missed in life.

If you feel like you’re not sure about bringing a new life into this world then adopt a kid if you want to be a parent. Or, be a foster parent.

Since I can remember people have said they don’t want to bring children into such a horrible world that seems to be going down the tubes. So far, most of the world is still hanging on. If you’re American, there is all sorts of crap that needs to be fixed here, but there is tons of good.

If you question being a parent because of the state of things and you’re living in a western country, and ate basically financially secure, then I think check to see if you might be depressed, or watching too much 24/7 news coverage.

If you question it because you’re not sure you want the responsibility, or financial strain, or unsure of your nurturing capabilities, that’s something else.

I’ve considered the possibility of being a foster parent as a way to balance my fear of overpopulation and my desire to nurture somebody. I don’t currently live somewhere that is conducive to being a foster parent, unfortunately.

@Espiritus_Corvus Yes. Thanks for writing that. I was really excited last year to see so many younger people (some of whom I knew just a couple of years before just rejected all politics as hopeless and pointless) getting really excited about the Sanders campaign.

I think you are over complicating it. If you want to become a parent and raise a child, then become a parent.

I will always suggest adoption because you can raise an otherwise neglected child, there are no pregnancy complications, and you are helping the population, not adding to it.

Or, as Doris Lessing said:

“Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.”

I think it’s funny that this loftiest of undertakings – becoming a parent – is one that we encourage people to approach with an attitude of “fuck your concerns, if you want it, go for it.” Why is that? We would never say that to someone considering the dangers of starting a new company in the midst of a recession, or to someone debating the wisdom of quitting their job to follow their dreams of becoming an artist, or to someone thinking about refinancing their mortgage so they can afford that boat they’ve always wanted. But when it comes to creating a new person, one whose quality of life will be very affected by the conditions of the environment they are born into, this is an acceptable thing to say to people.

Ethically, no. We need good people. If you’re going to raise good people, that’s one of the only ways to make the world a better place…

I kept waiting to feel “ready”. Whether that meant feeling like a father, or feeling like I was content with my financial situation and career. I never got there. Looking back, and around at friends, I don’t think anyone actually does. I wasn’t ready for one, and wasn’t ready again before my second was born.

I try to keep it in perspective by remembering my childhood. The first house I remember was a travel trailer, when it was time for me to go to school, we stopped traveling and my dad went to work as a construction laborer. My folks worked their way up from there and I think I had a great childhood, they always loved me and my brother. But were they ready? Probably not.

My kids live like tiny royalty comparatively, but I hope I’m half the parent my folks were.

Look at it honestly, have you ever felt like you were completely secure, happy, and ready to add a whole other level of complication to your life right then? Did it last for long enough to add a baby? I really don’t think people work like that very often. We steer in a general direction and adapt.

So for me, the ethics involved are whether or not you’re willing to make room for that little person who will be your new #1 priority. That space doesn’t already have to exist in your life, you just have to be willing to create it. The world at large could do a lot worse than having one more loved child in it.

@cinnamonk I’ll tell people to go for all those things except the boat. Really. You can do more than you think.

@funkdaddy you wouldn’t dismiss their concerns as “overcomplicating” it, though.

@cinnamonk: You misinterpret my post as being flippant or dismissive of their concerns.

I’m only saying that if something is that important to you, you have to assume some risk. If not, then don’t. You can proceed as cautiously as you’d like, but if you ask my opinion, I’m going to tell you.

I mean, it is dismissive, though. You literally told OP that her very relevant, very reasonable concerns about the current state of the world were “overcomplicating” the very important decision to have or not to have children. But whatever.

@cinnamonk: Yes. In my opinion, based on my experience in becoming a parent, it is overcomplicating the situation.

I recognize the concerns and had many of them myself, but I decided that end goal was worth the risk. Thirteen years later, I can tell you unequivocally it was.

Now, if they disagree, they are welcome to ignore my advice. That is how this here lagoon functions.

@cookieman glad it worked out for you. It doesn’t work out for everybody, however, so maybe OP is on the right track by asking these questions, since these questions directly concern the future welfare of people who may or may not come into existence. It’s neat that you’ve figured out how to guarantee the well-being of your children for the rest of their lives, though, so props.

Also, if you are concerned with bringing children into a less-than-desirable world, I would ask you to consider this (IMHO)...

It is the responsibility of those of us who have been honored with parenthood to raise our children to be responsible, productive members of society, and to provide them with the tools to do the same for the next generation.

If we can not change the world, let us at least give the next generation hope that they can learn from our mistakes and make the necessary changes.

@cinnamonk: You are correct. Things don’t always work out. They have not always worked for me, but that’s the part about assuming risk versus the potential reward.

Also:

”It’s neat that you’ve figured out how to guarantee the well-being of your children for the rest of their lives”

I’m pretty sure I never said that.

You stated unequivocally that it was worth the risk, which I took to mean you were certain your kids would have kick-ass lives forever.

Y’all are pretty judgy about other people’s reproductive choices. Jussayin’...

@LeavesNoTrace well, that was kind of the point of this thread though, wasn’t it? To discuss the ethics of reproduction?

@cinnamonk: Not at all.

”I decided that end goal was worth the risk. Thirteen years later, I can tell you unequivocally it was.” — for me, thus far

There is still a chance it could all go to shit, but so far so good.

My point exactly.

@cinnamonk: Well yes, but isn’t that true of almost everything in life?

Not every decision involves the creation of a brand new human being who potentially has to live in a shitty world and suffer disease or poverty or both or whatever for 80 years. Most of our decisions affect primarily ourselves. The decision to have children does not.

This is why I have decided that “I feel that having children is taking an unacceptable risk on another person’s life.”

@cinnamonk: I get that entirely, and I can understand why you’d make that decision.

The world has never been less shitty than it is now.

@ARE_you_kidding_me The world has never been less shitty than it is now.

That depends on your outlook…7,600,000,000 himans can generate a lot of shit in one day!

@ARE_you_kidding_me true if you don’t believe in catastrophic climate change.

@Strauss, while your comment is intended as commical, and a visual I don’t want, it gives my comment some weight.
How many of those shitty people are raising their kids to be ready to face challenges, to make improvements, to improve the human condition? Those trying are greatly outnumbered by those whose main drive in life is to eat, shit, and make babies.
It is mighty hard to keep a kid on track when they are surrounded by apathy, sloth, and derision.
Raising a kid in hopes they will improve ANYTHING about the world is a lottery.
To have a child is indeed a selfish thing, just as working toward a promotion, looking for a home in the best neighborhood you can afford, studying hard to pass med school are all selfish moves.
The word selfish does not have to be a bad thing. It simply means, what we do for ourselves.
What needs to be considered, is how having a child fits into the life you want for yourselves.
For someone who is a nester, and thrives on spending day and night nurturung someone else, then having a child might be right for you.
If you thrive on adventure, travel, danger, maybe, or maybe not.
Don’t have a child because you feel a family is more respectable or more complete than being a couple. If you feel complete as a couple, then that is exactly what you should be.

I can’t help but get the impression that most people have children because they feel it somehow validates or justifies their own existence.

Not me. I had children because I thought it would enrich my life and it has – immeasurably. I see no reason for either smugness or snarkiness on either side of a very personal decision.

Do you feel that your life would be somehow empty, less meaningful or of less worth without children?

I don’t think in terms of worth about having children, no, not particularly.

@cinnamonk
“true if you don’t believe in catastrophic climate change”
The catastrophic part I sure don’t, at least not until I see evidence to the contrary.

If the future is bleak, then that’s more reason to have good people. I like when good people, have good offspring. We’ll need good people to lead us , in those hard times…

@aykm We are already living in the time of catastrophic climate change. I can show you the evidence but I can’t make you see it.

@janbb

I don’t mean “worth” in terms of literal wealth. Do you feel your life would be less meaningful without children?

Come on guys, no option is perfect. There’s more than one right answer here.

Find yours, don’t base it on fear, that’s all anyone is saying.

—@Patty_Melt I stated it jokingly so as not to hijack the thread; but it is a serious worldwide problem, considering humans generate over 1 million tonnes each day!

Exactly @funkdaddy!

@janbb I agree. No need to judge people who either have children biologically, adopt, or choose to remain child-free for any reason.I think that some people are being unfairly harsh to one another on this forum and it’s kind of shitty.

Having or not having children ultimately is a personal choice. Admittedly, my partner and I would like to have one child in our lifetime. People can say about that what they will. I think that if more people around the world chose to limit their families to one or two tops, we would have less overpopulation. However, there’s also the issue of people living longer and longer…

I’m just not sure that it will ever be in the cards for us though with the many push/pull factors of fertility, economics, and other issues in the world. We love each other and would probably be decent parents, but it’s bumming me out that children may be a luxury best left for the affluent…

Lady, you asked for our opinion.

I said the choice to have children is right for some, not right for others. I didn’t pick fights with anybody, but I don’t think anybody read my post. At least, not all the way through.

@Patty_Melt I wasn’t talking about you specifically.

@cinnamonk I respect your perspective and I think you make some fine points.However, you were pretty harsh on @janbb for her reproductive choices. Her decision to have kids is just as valid as your choice not to have them.

Sometimes I forget that Fluther skews a little older and I was hoping that I could get feedback from others who are going through something similar in their current lives.

I’m too solitary to even want a partner, let alone kids. Maybe if I fall in love with someone this might change, if they love me back, but I highly doubt it. I am quite fine being on my own and I would never want any kids.

@LeavesNoTrace FWIW, although I and many others are much older, we too went through the process of deciding to have children. And the world didn’t look so great back in the 60s, 70s and 80s either. ( I don’t remember cinnamonk being particularly harsh on me but thanks for the defense. I do think there is far too much judging on this thread in general.)

* shrug *

@LeavesNoTrace Sometimes I forget that Fluther skews a little older and I was hoping that I could get feedback from others who are going through something similar in their current lives.

What sort of answers were you looking for?

not confronting, just wondering if/how we got the wrong idea