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Is anyone else here childfree by choice?

Discussion in 'Chit Chat' started by fadedstar, Nov 19, 2018.

  1. fadedstar

    fadedstar Guest

    It's not that I never wanted biological children. Before I started questioning my sexuality I actually thought the idea of having little people who are "half me" running around the world was kind of cool. The more I've thought about it however the less it seems like a good idea in general and the less I feel like I can justify making the decision to procreate. I might in theory have the best of intentions for their future but I can't guarantee they would have a perfect life. Natural disasters, terminal illnesses, life changing accidental injuries, violent crimes, bullying, homelessness, suicide etc. Those are all things that happen in this world. I might be able to teach my hypothetical kids how best to avoid those kinds of things but I can't stop them from happening completely. For that reason I feel like the risks of bringing life into this world outweigh the benefits. No matter how unlikely some of those things are I just don't think I could live with myself if I brought someone into this world and something horrible (and potentially life changing in a bad way) happened to them.

    Having said all of that I feel like the outsider in the LGBT community for having such beliefs because so much of what LGBT people discuss is about fitting in with the rest of society and being "normal." And there is so much talk of LGBT people being able to procreate too "just like the straights."
     
  2. Totesgaybrah

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    I kinda feel the same. Too much uncertainty in this world to selfishly bring another person into it.

    I’ve always wanted kids though like I had already thought of names for my future children when I was 10 years old.

    I’ll never have biological children but if I ever find myself financially successful and married to a suitable partner then I would seriously consider adoption.
     
  3. Destin

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    This is one of the few things that really annoys me so apologies if this sounds too blunt. The whole 'it's morally wrong to have kids because the world isn't perfect' thing is just total and utter bullcrap used as a morally condescending excuse. The world has never been perfect and never will be. If everyone followed that very short-sighted mindset there would literally be no humans left.

    To say that you'd rather deny a hypothetical child 10, 20, 40, 70 years of happiness and enjoyment just because a few bad things might happen along the way is ridiculous. No matter how bad people's lives are it's better than never living at all, because they will eventually have a few good memories they wouldn't have had otherwise.
     
  4. RainbowGreen

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    I kinda agree with Destin here.

    There are some valid reasons to not want children, like, feeling like you wouldn't be a good parent (lack of patience, not really a responsible person, lack of time to commit to them, etc.) or not liking kids is also a good reason. I hate when people pressure others into having children, because they never think about the reason why someone might now want to have kids.

    You could also say the world is overpopulated, but then, it depends on where you live. If the fertility rate of your country/region is under 2... well, you having children is not gonna be an issue.

    Sure you might feel like it would be selfish to give life to a child if you can't constantly protect them, but how would you feel if your parents always felt that way about you? Wouldn't you feel annoyed? Like your parents didn't trust you to make good decisions on your own? Children need to make mistakes. That's how they learn. That's how we learn as well. Those mistakes (and most importantly, how they correct them and prevent them from happening again) will shape them into the person they'll grow up to be. Trying to wrap them into bubblewrap is not a good idea. They won't be prepared for the world and they won't be able to bring their own contributions to it.
     
  5. alwaysforever

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    Overpopulation isn't what is causing over-consumption of resources. The number of people makes some difference, but it's tiny compared to what the top 5 corporations emit or use. We could have a lot more people and be just fine if we weren't so greedy and didn't only care about the people in our own community. Additionally carbon emissions line up with income, and public corporations designed to maximize profit without taking human well-being into account.
     
  6. fadedstar

    fadedstar Guest

    Dude, that doesn't even make sense you are arguing from a place of emotion not logic. You're saying it's bullshit because it makes YOU feel bad. A person that never existed isn't being denied anything. A non existent consciousness cannot be deprived of anything because it doesn't exist. No one is moralising here. It's my right not to have kids. And besides it's not about 'morality' it's 'ethics.' Morality is subjective. Ethics is objective.

    And this post wasn't to debate the validity of my position, in fact you've just proved my point that people get judgmental about this kind of thing and start branding anyone who has a different point of view as "abnormal" or "wrong."
     
    #6 fadedstar, Nov 19, 2018
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 19, 2018
  7. fadedstar

    fadedstar Guest

    Which is bad for LGBT people like me because it means we are shunned not only by parts of mainstream society for being LGBT but also shunned within the LGBT community for not being a wannabe normy.
     
    #7 fadedstar, Nov 19, 2018
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 19, 2018
  8. Lexa

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    Destin clearly didn't have my childhood. That's why I never wanted children. I spent a lot of my youth wishing I was never born, asking myself why my parents put me on this earth if they didn't even were going to care about me, and thinking about committing suicide... I just didn't want to do to a child what happened to me. Looking back on my life I still don't know if I would have preferred to be born or not. It's that I'm here...
     
  9. fadedstar

    fadedstar Guest

    What is it meant to be excusing exactly? Are you implying that people should have to justify their existence if they choose not procreate, because that's all kinds of fucked up.
     
  10. Molko

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    I don’t have kids, I’ve had a few personal problems and had to get my life in order and now would like to concentrate on my ambitions - that’s not included children. I’ve never desired having them, I don’t picture them in the future but a lot can change so I’m open minded.

    I think everyone is entitled to decide not to procreate no matter what their reasons - it is their life and they choose not to bring another into the world then that’s their right. It’s the other side of that coin that concerns me at times.
     
    #10 Molko, Nov 19, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2018
  11. fadedstar

    fadedstar Guest

    It's got nothing to do with that really. Some situations are just fucked up. This idea that it all evens out in the end because you learn stuff and don't end up in the same situation just isn't applicable to what I'm actually talking about. Some people go through things that go beyond "learning a lesson" and they end up with severe PTSD or in some other horrible inescapable predicament.
     
    #11 fadedstar, Nov 19, 2018
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 19, 2018
  12. Hawk

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    I have mixed feelings about kids. Part of me would like to be a parent one day, but that would have to depend on financial stability, and whether or not I'm mentally ready for kids. The other thing is, I don't know if I would want my kids to have part of my DNA. There's a few things that I wish couldn't be passed down that probably will be. I would prefer it if my partner could bear the child if that's what they choose to do, if not I'd probably want to do surrogacy or adoption.

    I think if a family is financially well-off, living in a decent neighborhood, with loving parents and a good home, the chances of diseases and/or violence decreases.
     
  13. Hawk

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    The other thing is, and it may change in the future, but if I never have kids, I don't think it'll be something that I regret.
    One of the things I've been thinking about was, once a person reaches old age, the children are usually the one's to decide if it's time to go to a nursing home or equivalent. But I guess, if a person didn't have kids, they'd just have to make arrangements prior to old age and have things/resources in place when the time comes.
     
  14. tystnad

    tystnad Guest

    Considering that the average age at which women have children in my country is 30 I suppose I can't say I'm currently childfree by choice (I don't know a single person my age who has children, anyway, so it's partially just being childfree due to age i guess - though in many places 24 is not such a weird age to be a mum, i guess) but I have never wanted children, highly doubt I ever will, and I think it will very much be a dealbreaker for me in a relationship as well - not something I'm willing to compromise on. I remember being in (catholic) primary school and announcing I didn't want kids and shocking everyone with that news, lol. I guess my reasons are less idealistic and more selfish in nature in that I simply don't like kids and I'm not really willing to sacrifice my freedom and independence for them. My parents and their wreck of a marriage and a ton of shit that took place post-divorce also didn't exactly provide excellent parenting inspiration, I don't really see why I'd have a kid and risk messing it up? I didn't want kids well before my parents' marriage turned into a disaster but everything I've been through definitely didn't make me more interested in having kids either...

    I don't really think anyone needs a "reason" not to have kids though... we're more than just baby making machines, people get to decide what they do and do not want to do with their lives and not having kids is definitely one of those options. And since that choice is typically made well before there is any life form to begin with, I don't see how that is denying any babies their right to live... By that logic we're denying a child their right to live every time we have gay sex or use protection because that could have lead to a child that could have lived a happy life...? If there's no life to begin with I don't think there's anything we can take away from it to begin with.

    Interestingly, I've actually found that none of the lgbt people I know want children. I suppose that's something that depends on which circles you're in as well as cultural factors (countries with higher birth rates might consider child bearing more of a given than an option, regardless of sexuality) but the people I hang out with tend to also not be too concerned with integrating the lgbt community fully into society. As in, we're not the same as straight people - we should definitely have the same rights and be considered equal, but we don't necessarily have to be seen as the same. I'll defend LGBT people's right to have children to death but that doesn't mean I myself want to conform to the ideals that society has set up, one of them being that of motherhood... I'll leave that to other people, thank you very much
     
  15. OGS

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    I guess I am childfree by choice. I don't particularly espouse the idea that the world is so awful that it's not fair to bring children into it. The world could certainly improve and the last few years have definitely challenged my belief that it will, but all told I think the world's a pretty awesome place full of beautiful and terrible things and all in all worth experiencing. My husband and I are in a position where we could have children if we chose to and we choose not to. We don't feel any deep drive to have children and it just frankly isn't part of the life we've chosen. We're both excellent uncles and have decided that's enough for us personally.
     
  16. SemiCharmedLife

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    I absolutely do not want kids. I've known for a long time that I didn't want to have any biological offspring because there's too much shit in my genetics that I don't want passed on. And I don't want to adopt either. I'll stick with dog parenthood.
     
  17. Destin

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    Ethics is very much subjective and based on the situation - for example society says it's ethically wrong to kill someone, but not if it's in self-defense, which is subjective. Also ethics is literally the philosophical and applied study of morality. They're the exact same thing.

    Untitled.png

    I meant it's a morally condescending excuse because people use it in place of the real reason to make themselves sound better. Like a woman learns she's infertile and can never have kids, and magically all of a sudden she's against having kids because the world is just a bad place and it's wrong to bring kids into it. Instead of just admitting she doesn't have kids because she can't, she makes up that bullcrap to lecture people on how morally upstanding she is and shame everyone who has kids for bringing them into a bad world.

    People take the moral high ground of 'I'm more enlightened on the state of the world and more responsible than you for not having kids' instead of just admitting 'I don't have kids because (insert real reason that doesn't sound good, whether it's bad genetics, inability to find a partner, not mature enough to raise kids and they know it etc.).
     
    #17 Destin, Nov 19, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2018
  18. Andrew99

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    Yes. I’m perfectly happy being a pet parent. Yes I do think of my pets as my children and no I’m not sorry.
     
    #18 Andrew99, Nov 19, 2018
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  19. Andrew99

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  20. Ruby Dragon

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    I'm child-free by choice. Not because of my sexuality, or the lack of a partner, but because of my mental health status. I'm bipolar, and it's hereditary. I also cannot stand crying babies or misbehaving kids, let alone when they reach teenage years with all the slamming doors and attitudes. Lol. Seriously, when my niece was still a baby, I was on vacation leave for a week, and I babysat. At one point I felt like throwing her against the wall when she was crying. That alone told me that I should never have kids. I mean, if I felt that way about someone I care about, who's to say I wouldn't act on it with my own? So no, I will NOT have children of my own. For this reason, I also seek partners who do not have kids, as it'll still be kids in the house. NOPE, not gonna happen. I know myself too well by now. I will end up taking out bad moods on the innocent children, biological or not, and that's not fair.