noahrevoy -- 2mo Your parents clearly gave you the impression that parenting is drudgery. In reality, it is an incredibly joyful, meaningful, and rewarding experience. This is not about pretending it is easy. Everything worthwhile requires hard work. Everything. That has always been true. And it is not only about what parents say. In many ways, what they demonstrate matters more. I demonstrate to my children every day how much I enjoy being a parent, how much I love them, how much they enrich my life, and how happy I am to be their father. If your parents had demonstrated to you how good it is to be a parent, and how much of a privilege it is, you would already have your own list of reasons for wanting children. Those reasons might differ somewhat from the reasons our grandparents had, but many of the core reasons are still the same and still present. That said, historically, not everyone had children. Roughly half of men never did, and about twenty percent of women did not either. So of course, not everyone is going to become a parent. reply [1 reply]Your parents clearly gave you the impression that parenting is drudgery. In reality, it is an incredibly joyful, meaningful, and rewarding experience. This is not about pretending it is easy. Everything worthwhile requires hard work. Everything. That has always been true. And it is not only about what parents say. In many ways, what they demonstrate matters more. I demonstrate to my children every day how much I enjoy being a parent, how much I love them, how much they enrich my life, and how happy I am to be their father. If your parents had demonstrated to you how good it is to be a parent, and how much of a privilege it is, you would already have your own list of reasons for wanting children. Those reasons might differ somewhat from the reasons our grandparents had, but many of the core reasons are still the same and still present. That said, historically, not everyone had children. Roughly half of men never did, and about twenty percent of women did not either. So of course, not everyone is going to become a parent.
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You see these testimonials online from parents who complain endlessly about how miserable parenting was forthem. How horrible their children are. How exhausted they are. How much they suffered. How much their childrennow do not want kids of their own.What they are really doing is bragging about being unskilled parents. Which is a strange thing to boast about.That kind of public complaining is not honest reflection. It is terrible parenting. Just as you do not complainabout your spouse in front of your children, you do not complain about being a parent in front of your children.The story you tell about parenting is the story your children absorb about family, responsibility, and thefuture.In our house, my wife and I always talk about our children in positive terms. Always. We do not describe them asburdens. We do not call them difficult, exhausting, or hard. We do not frame parenting that way at all.We talk about the pleasure of having children. We talk about responsibility as a privilege. About how doing hardthings can be joyful. As a result, my son sees caring for his younger brothers as something honorable. He wantsto do it. He enjoys it. He seeks it out.Children learn what life is supposed to feel like by watching you. If you tell them that raising children ruinsyour life, do not be surprised when they decide they do not want children of their own.The attitude you model about parenting is the attitude your children will carry when it comes time to decidewhether to give you grandchildren.
I don't know. Maybe.I personally had great parents who loved and supported me, and never once said a negative word about their roleas parents. Yet I never had any desire for the marriage and family lifestyle. It's not for everyone. My mom anddad understood that, and never gave me any grief for my decision.It's not enough to just hide the drudgery of parenting from one's own children and other potential parents bynot speaking of it. To convince people to breed, you really have to make them believe that there are realupsides in it for them. That's much harder to pull off. The reasons for having large families in mygrandparents' day (more free labor for the farm, etc.) just don't exist today, at least not as far as I cantell.
Your parents clearly gave you the impression that parenting is drudgery. In reality, it is an incredibly joyful,meaningful, and rewarding experience.This is not about pretending it is easy. Everything worthwhile requires hard work. Everything. That has alwaysbeen true.And it is not only about what parents say. In many ways, what they demonstrate matters more.I demonstrate to my children every day how much I enjoy being a parent, how much I love them, how much theyenrich my life, and how happy I am to be their father.If your parents had demonstrated to you how good it is to be a parent, and how much of a privilege it is, youwould already have your own list of reasons for wanting children. Those reasons might differ somewhat from thereasons our grandparents had, but many of the core reasons are still the same and still present.That said, historically, not everyone had children. Roughly half of men never did, and about twenty percent ofwomen did not either. So of course, not everyone is going to become a parent.
I don't know. Maybe.
I personally had great parents who loved and supported me, and never once said a negative word about their role as parents. Yet I never had any desire for the marriage and family lifestyle. It's not for everyone. My mom and dad understood that, and never gave me any grief for my decision.
It's not enough to just hide the drudgery of parenting from one's own children and other potential parents by not speaking of it. To convince people to breed, you really have to make them believe that there are real upsides in it for them. That's much harder to pull off. The reasons for having large families in my grandparents' day (more free labor for the farm, etc.) just don't exist today, at least not as far as I can tell.
I can't really speak for anyone else in the child-free camp, only for myself -- but for me personally, my childhood was awesome. My parents expressed nothing but love for me. Correction was supplied when needed, but gently. They never made me feel as though I were some sort of burden to them. Most of my childhood peers had a similar upbringing, at least from what I could tell from the outside, yet many of them also opted out of breeding.
The point I was trying to make isn't that people shouldn't have kids. I was just making the observation that one can be raised in a stable home with great parents who make them feel wanted and loved, and still end up not wanting kids of their own.
I agree with your point that growing up with parents who express visible contempt toward the childrearing experience can't help but make a child less likely to want children of their own. No doubt about it. But having solid, loving parents doesn't necessarily generate the opposite outcome.
I suspect most young people these days just look at the pros and cons of what having a child would mean in their lives, and make their decision, and that decision often has nothing to do with how they were raised. It's just a forward-looking cost/benefit analysis.
If you talk to most people who opted out, they'll talk about the financial burden, or how it'll upend their plans to travel the world, or interfere with their personal freedom, or some BS about climate change. And that's fine. Everyone has their own reasons, not all of them legit. I'm just a bit more honest than most of them when I say that I just don't care for kids. Even when I was a kid / teen-ager, I preferred the company of adults, with few exceptions. I have zero no interest in dealing with the sleepless nights, changing diapers, the endless screaming, the moody teenage years, the tuition payments and medical expenses, etc. for what appears to me to be zero payoff.
Others don't see it that way, of course. They see the payoff as being huge. If I were alive a hundred years ago, I'd probably agree with them. In 2026 though, not so much. To each his own, right?
On a someone related note, I enjoyed this article about the fertility decline:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/lets-save-the-human-species
This guy's not like me. He wants the fertility rate to increase, not decrease. It's an interesting and thoughtful analysis though.
Best...
