It is truly the peak of narcissism for someone to ask a parent such a question, and at the same time the peak of attempted distraction from that very narcissism.
***
We too don’t judge those who choose, or who are constrained by circumstances outside their choices, to not have children.
But for ourselves:
We have kids (now young adults) because we believed — and still believe — that they might be able to carry forward a legacy of caring & compassion for others, and build a better future.
We have kids because we have hope for a world in which caring counts more than extractive success.
We have kids because we’re living in a fucking society, warts and all, and societies go extinct along with any good they might include if there are no children to carry them forward & to improve upon them.
We have kids because we’re evolved, sexually reproducing living beings; our genetic drives are impossible to avoid having found each other by chance, bonded through (complicated but still materially-based) love, and been unimpeded by obstacles (rational or otherwise; individual, societal or environmental) to those genes propagating themselves.
We have kids because we are human, and have had the exceptionally good fortune to be able to do so — and now that they are adults, we keep loving them and supporting their pro-social successes as they are fully engaged in making that better future come to pass.
And we are grateful for both of our kids, as none of that was or is guaranteed, while also being apprehensive and realistic about the challenges they will face in their lifetimes.
Well said. Do these people ever think what would happen to everyone if the entire world suddenly stopped having kids? Are they really okay with that? I don't think so. I think you're right, it's just a weird brand of narcissism.
Thank you. This says exactly what needs to be said on this issue. I hear the question frequently, too, more than ever. All the movements against having children and anti-natalist nonsense in one’s face on the one hand, and the capitalist/nationalist obsession with declining birth rates on the other, which aims to increase the GDP, or ensure a sufficient pool of social security taxpayers, are stupid and revolting but the entirely predictable result of thinking that “the economy” is more important than what used to be called human values.
The NYT ran an article on this question in 2021. Then as now, I found it grandiose for anyone to think they are in a position to judge whether bringing a child into the world is absolutely good or bad when doing so is an act about which no one can claim to have enough moral information from nature, or the universe (the perch from which musing on this issue purports to proceed), to position the act on a fully informed moral or ethical scale with any confidence that could be called sufficient. Having kids seems unavoidably selfish and unselfish, myopic and hopeful, imprudent and wonderful, risky and worth risking, depending on all of our individual circumstances. That might sound wishy-washy, but that's all anyone is ever honestly going to get from thinking about the question. Even in an in extremis condition like Children of Men, it escapes me how every adult capable of having children would NOT be equally justified in either having kids or committing suicide. As for reducing the carbon footprint of the next generation, the formula is simple: everyone on earth who wants children should have just one.
This hit like a lullaby sung from the edge of the apocalypse. The question was never really why we had kids. It’s why did everyone else stop caring the moment we did. The same people who roll their eyes at parents are the ones who depend on our children’s future labor, then complain when we ask for a world worth growing up in. It’s not hypocrisy. It’s heartbreak. Thanks for saying it out loud.
You have a way of waking me up with these amazing questions.
When I was in the military, I was deployed to places such as Africa and Southeast Asia, where this really came to light. There always seemed to be so many more children, and everywhere! This was not two and a half kids and a dog.
I knew a man who was related to a train conductor I knew. He took the tickets on the train. He was a regular guy, and just like anybody else. After getting to know them for a while, I learned that he had two families—one at each end of his train route, and each with nine children! You can imagine my face. When I asked why, he said that he needed them all to support him when he got older. He also said that a 'few' had died along the way, and you never knew how many you would end up with by the time that they could feed you. (kids = utility)
As I am listening to this, I think of my mother. She grew up in the same house where I was born, in rural West Virginia. She was one of nine, and they had lost one child to cholera and had one boy with Polio, and she was unable to work. Not too far from the nest, right? She said that many farmers (dairy country) had the same basic strategy. The number you have may not be the number you keep. Then, all except one boy were drafted and sent away.
It seems important to consider the broader context. Now, to the question asked here. Why indeed?
Let's be clear, the declining birth rate should be easy to understand:
You have a credit card's worth of microplastic in your balls and ovaries.
You breathe air, drink water, and eat engineered food that is toxic, has no nutritional value, and you have no idea who grew it, where, or under what conditions.
You grow up fed on stories that marriage and children are the natural destination for adult life, and that you are expected to produce an heir.
As to whether this will continue, a couple of years ago, I asked the then 14-year-old daughter of a friend if she planned on getting married, etc. Making nervous adult talk. She looked at me like i was mad, and said, "uh, no way." I asked, kids? Nope. She said that kids would be "irresponsible" because the world she had to raise them in was "toast."
I remain uncertain if she is right about that, but the signs are there. It's our choice. It may be one of the only free ones left. Defend yours.
Thanks Jessica. It’s a difficult question that I probably take more seriously than I ought or need to. I have a twenty-year-old and a fifteen-year-old, and the youngest was born at about the time I was starting think about collapse as a virtual inevitability within my and their lifetimes. Obviously one does worry about bringing or having brought children into a rapidly deteriorating world, and I wonder if I would have made the same decision ten or five years ago, or if I would make the same decision today.
I’ve often reflected on Schopenhauer’s “If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man [sic] rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?.” Except, of course, children are not born from such an act. They are born from love, desire, relationship, hope and other such passions and emotions, so it’s a bit of a non-starter. I tend to say to my students that we’re all fallible, morally-imperfect, corporeal and messy creatures, so will no doubt keep reproducing, even or perhaps especially in the worst of times. That said, the attitudes of my students (university-level) have significantly changed over the last twenty or so years, with far fewer, including my own daughter, thinking about having children, and with much more consideration of adoption (echoing Haraway’s ‘make kin, not babies’).
I don’t think having kids is a logical choice it just is or it just isn’t. Much of what we do is illogical to the brain but the heart knows, the body knows. Kids however we end up with them get us to wonder, to reflect, to be brave, to become, to human.
That- and the bacteria t. Gondii. And of course, covid causing -more miscarriages, maternal deaths and stillbirths… and in the usa, all of the maternal deserts, which are increasing everyday.
Why did I have a kid? It was 34 years ago. He was a mistake. My marriage was failing. I went off the pill for one month. Didn’t know I was pregnant until month 4. And I was 30. I only had 1. But he is and will always be, the best of me. My life was so much better with him, than it would have been without him. Even as a single mom, moving across the country, driving in a little vw, singing songs…
Children are the joy of our lives, that is why we have children.
I had such a lovely conversation about this with my parents long ago when i got pregnant with my first son - (I have two girls 21 months apart - and 14 years later had 2 boys - 21 months apart) and what that discussion sounded like was - I think no parent has ever had a child in a world that was in their time 'a good time' to have kids - but during world wars and bad events people still did because kids are a biological hope and part of the gorgeous tapestry of being alive.
<snip> The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things or make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things. Dr Who Vincent episode.
The reality is there are plenty of people that wish they were never born. You’re ostracized if you don’t agree with the “life is a gift” philosophy that’s drilled into the majority of the population.
Our species chooses to live in denial of the sufferings of life that are intolerable. The best choice I made was to not impose life and suffering on another being. Our species is clearly not sustainable, as the earth tries to remind us every damn day. Bringing another innocent child into the mess only makes Gaia groan more.
I never wanted kids myself and didn’t have them, but I honor the people who were willing to take that risk and show that hope. Society should take care of parents so that more people can feel that hope and trust in the future. I’m so sorry that we are in this age when so many people have abandoned the concepts of civilized society. I’m sorry they’ve made you suffer for it.
Hi Jessica, not quite sure the best place to ask this, but I noticed that I haven't been getting some of the posts as emails (like this one) and am wondering if it's a me glitch or Substack glitch?
I only saw this one because it was in The Ever Elusive Normal
Thank you, Jessica.
It is truly the peak of narcissism for someone to ask a parent such a question, and at the same time the peak of attempted distraction from that very narcissism.
***
We too don’t judge those who choose, or who are constrained by circumstances outside their choices, to not have children.
But for ourselves:
We have kids (now young adults) because we believed — and still believe — that they might be able to carry forward a legacy of caring & compassion for others, and build a better future.
We have kids because we have hope for a world in which caring counts more than extractive success.
We have kids because we’re living in a fucking society, warts and all, and societies go extinct along with any good they might include if there are no children to carry them forward & to improve upon them.
We have kids because we’re evolved, sexually reproducing living beings; our genetic drives are impossible to avoid having found each other by chance, bonded through (complicated but still materially-based) love, and been unimpeded by obstacles (rational or otherwise; individual, societal or environmental) to those genes propagating themselves.
We have kids because we are human, and have had the exceptionally good fortune to be able to do so — and now that they are adults, we keep loving them and supporting their pro-social successes as they are fully engaged in making that better future come to pass.
And we are grateful for both of our kids, as none of that was or is guaranteed, while also being apprehensive and realistic about the challenges they will face in their lifetimes.
Well said. Do these people ever think what would happen to everyone if the entire world suddenly stopped having kids? Are they really okay with that? I don't think so. I think you're right, it's just a weird brand of narcissism.
A snarky comeback would be “why did your parents have kids?” A kinder way to respond would be, “the same reason your parents had you.”
Yep, my thoughts exactly.
Thank you. This says exactly what needs to be said on this issue. I hear the question frequently, too, more than ever. All the movements against having children and anti-natalist nonsense in one’s face on the one hand, and the capitalist/nationalist obsession with declining birth rates on the other, which aims to increase the GDP, or ensure a sufficient pool of social security taxpayers, are stupid and revolting but the entirely predictable result of thinking that “the economy” is more important than what used to be called human values.
The NYT ran an article on this question in 2021. Then as now, I found it grandiose for anyone to think they are in a position to judge whether bringing a child into the world is absolutely good or bad when doing so is an act about which no one can claim to have enough moral information from nature, or the universe (the perch from which musing on this issue purports to proceed), to position the act on a fully informed moral or ethical scale with any confidence that could be called sufficient. Having kids seems unavoidably selfish and unselfish, myopic and hopeful, imprudent and wonderful, risky and worth risking, depending on all of our individual circumstances. That might sound wishy-washy, but that's all anyone is ever honestly going to get from thinking about the question. Even in an in extremis condition like Children of Men, it escapes me how every adult capable of having children would NOT be equally justified in either having kids or committing suicide. As for reducing the carbon footprint of the next generation, the formula is simple: everyone on earth who wants children should have just one.
This hit like a lullaby sung from the edge of the apocalypse. The question was never really why we had kids. It’s why did everyone else stop caring the moment we did. The same people who roll their eyes at parents are the ones who depend on our children’s future labor, then complain when we ask for a world worth growing up in. It’s not hypocrisy. It’s heartbreak. Thanks for saying it out loud.
I agree, and I love the phrase lullabies from the edge of the apocalypse. Heartbreak for sure.
You have found one of the great paradoxes.
You have a way of waking me up with these amazing questions.
When I was in the military, I was deployed to places such as Africa and Southeast Asia, where this really came to light. There always seemed to be so many more children, and everywhere! This was not two and a half kids and a dog.
I knew a man who was related to a train conductor I knew. He took the tickets on the train. He was a regular guy, and just like anybody else. After getting to know them for a while, I learned that he had two families—one at each end of his train route, and each with nine children! You can imagine my face. When I asked why, he said that he needed them all to support him when he got older. He also said that a 'few' had died along the way, and you never knew how many you would end up with by the time that they could feed you. (kids = utility)
As I am listening to this, I think of my mother. She grew up in the same house where I was born, in rural West Virginia. She was one of nine, and they had lost one child to cholera and had one boy with Polio, and she was unable to work. Not too far from the nest, right? She said that many farmers (dairy country) had the same basic strategy. The number you have may not be the number you keep. Then, all except one boy were drafted and sent away.
It seems important to consider the broader context. Now, to the question asked here. Why indeed?
Let's be clear, the declining birth rate should be easy to understand:
You have a credit card's worth of microplastic in your balls and ovaries.
You breathe air, drink water, and eat engineered food that is toxic, has no nutritional value, and you have no idea who grew it, where, or under what conditions.
You grow up fed on stories that marriage and children are the natural destination for adult life, and that you are expected to produce an heir.
As to whether this will continue, a couple of years ago, I asked the then 14-year-old daughter of a friend if she planned on getting married, etc. Making nervous adult talk. She looked at me like i was mad, and said, "uh, no way." I asked, kids? Nope. She said that kids would be "irresponsible" because the world she had to raise them in was "toast."
I remain uncertain if she is right about that, but the signs are there. It's our choice. It may be one of the only free ones left. Defend yours.
Thanks Jessica. It’s a difficult question that I probably take more seriously than I ought or need to. I have a twenty-year-old and a fifteen-year-old, and the youngest was born at about the time I was starting think about collapse as a virtual inevitability within my and their lifetimes. Obviously one does worry about bringing or having brought children into a rapidly deteriorating world, and I wonder if I would have made the same decision ten or five years ago, or if I would make the same decision today.
I’ve often reflected on Schopenhauer’s “If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man [sic] rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence?.” Except, of course, children are not born from such an act. They are born from love, desire, relationship, hope and other such passions and emotions, so it’s a bit of a non-starter. I tend to say to my students that we’re all fallible, morally-imperfect, corporeal and messy creatures, so will no doubt keep reproducing, even or perhaps especially in the worst of times. That said, the attitudes of my students (university-level) have significantly changed over the last twenty or so years, with far fewer, including my own daughter, thinking about having children, and with much more consideration of adoption (echoing Haraway’s ‘make kin, not babies’).
I don’t think having kids is a logical choice it just is or it just isn’t. Much of what we do is illogical to the brain but the heart knows, the body knows. Kids however we end up with them get us to wonder, to reflect, to be brave, to become, to human.
That- and the bacteria t. Gondii. And of course, covid causing -more miscarriages, maternal deaths and stillbirths… and in the usa, all of the maternal deserts, which are increasing everyday.
Why did I have a kid? It was 34 years ago. He was a mistake. My marriage was failing. I went off the pill for one month. Didn’t know I was pregnant until month 4. And I was 30. I only had 1. But he is and will always be, the best of me. My life was so much better with him, than it would have been without him. Even as a single mom, moving across the country, driving in a little vw, singing songs…
Children are the joy of our lives, that is why we have children.
I had such a lovely conversation about this with my parents long ago when i got pregnant with my first son - (I have two girls 21 months apart - and 14 years later had 2 boys - 21 months apart) and what that discussion sounded like was - I think no parent has ever had a child in a world that was in their time 'a good time' to have kids - but during world wars and bad events people still did because kids are a biological hope and part of the gorgeous tapestry of being alive.
<snip> The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa the bad things don’t always spoil the good things or make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things. Dr Who Vincent episode.
Kids are some of the good things.
The reality is there are plenty of people that wish they were never born. You’re ostracized if you don’t agree with the “life is a gift” philosophy that’s drilled into the majority of the population.
Our species chooses to live in denial of the sufferings of life that are intolerable. The best choice I made was to not impose life and suffering on another being. Our species is clearly not sustainable, as the earth tries to remind us every damn day. Bringing another innocent child into the mess only makes Gaia groan more.
I never wanted kids myself and didn’t have them, but I honor the people who were willing to take that risk and show that hope. Society should take care of parents so that more people can feel that hope and trust in the future. I’m so sorry that we are in this age when so many people have abandoned the concepts of civilized society. I’m sorry they’ve made you suffer for it.
Hi Jessica, not quite sure the best place to ask this, but I noticed that I haven't been getting some of the posts as emails (like this one) and am wondering if it's a me glitch or Substack glitch?
I only saw this one because it was in The Ever Elusive Normal
New Substack stories this week.