Yes, I realize I'm preaching to the choir.

I grew up surrounded by a particular kind of chaos: hedonistic, short-sighted people—many of them blood relatives—who treat reproduction like an afterthought and children like disposable burdens. Kids are brought into the world and then neglected, screamed at, beaten, and denied basic stability. Fathers vanish or never show up in the first place. The result is another generation raised in poverty and disorder, with no one willing to break the pattern.

The women and girls around me have always seemed driven by a mix of romantic delusion and pure impulse. They treat having a child as some kind of claim on a man, then repeatedly choose partners who are either worthless or actively destructive—violent, criminal, in and out of prison. One girl I know has a child she effectively abandoned with her white relatives because she can’t stop chasing a coke dealer. Her stated preference is for Black men. This isn’t limited to any single group; it’s transplants from everywhere, all converging on the same dysfunction. “Black fatigue” doesn’t begin to cover it.

I resent my own mother for embodying this. She did drugs, failed to protect me, and allowed me to be molested. When she died she left me nothing. The only relative I still speak to is a cousin who somehow escaped the orbit—he actually wants to go to college and become an engineer. Everyone else in the family seems to have at least three unclaimed children they’re actively mistreating and starving of the basics. It’s exhausting to watch the same cycle repeat while the people in it treat it as normal.

Geniuenly, I'm a 14 year old teenage boy. I have an eating disorder, social anxiety, OCD and autism (all diagnosed by licensed therapists).

I've got no friends, only acquaintances and I'm constantly stressed about school and how I'm going to be in an even worse state of mind when I find a job, if I even find one.

I want to be happy and enjoy life like people tell me but I'm embarrassed of the things I like (history because it's seen as nerdy, pop music because it's seen as cringey and object shows for the same reason as pop music). Life feels duller and duller every day and I'm constantly exhausted.

I also feel my OCD, anxiety and eating disorders slowly taking over my life and my light and sound sensitivity are getting more prominent due to my autism.

I'm ashamed to admit that I've thought of taking my own life multiple times but I'm scared of dying and what'll happen.

The worst part is, I'm one of the luckier people. I've never been raped and I live in a safe country with all my basic needs met and I'm truly greatful for that.

However, I'm not able to take care of myself properly, let alone of a child...

I just don't see a point to life. It's just very overwhelming and when it's not, it's just boring...

I feel bad for this woman as she got pregnant unexpectedly at 20 years old. Anyway, it reminds me of an uncle who definitely had antisocial personality disorder / psychopathy.

He was charming but a drug addict and extremely lazy. My grandparents spent hundreds of thousands on lawyers, bail, and paying his bills even in his 50s.

I think parents can help shape how well someone turns out, but ultimately, personality is genetic, and parents can only do so much. You honestly never know how your child will turn out...

This quote is just so true. How can anyone look at this world and think "this world is awesome, let's bring more people here to enjoy it". This world is absolutely horrendous and I do indeed think optimism is a wicked way to think.

Even as a child when we’d visit family, my twin brother and the other boys would be playing video games, sports, hanging out doing other fun stuff, and I as one of the females would just have babies shoved at me or expected to want to bake or something. I genuinely didn’t gaf about any of it, but I was always afraid to say anything. my twin brother would also get gifts catering to his interests, and no one ever cared to know what mine were. I would get some random jewelry or perfume/ body wash, or something with puppies or kittens on it even at the age of 17, but sometimes I’d get money which was cool. My brother would get stuff he was actually interested in, electronics, sports stuff. I was also interested in electronics but my brother was allowed to just take and hog everything.

I hate how people are so crazy about the concept of making a legacy. Really? Are you going to make a kid just for your own personal gain? For values that your child might not even align with? Why dont these people adopt? There are so many unwanted children. Why are you obsessed so much with what blood flows in a person? Grow the fuck up, find a shred of empathy and maybe give up one of your toxic "values" and be a better person. If you cant love a child unless it came from you then maybe you shouldnt have one at all you soulless joke of person

I was watching the Korean movie A Bittersweet Life and this quote showed up, which was the essence of the movie. To me this quote also captures exactly why I think pessimism is correct. People will often argue about the amount of good and bad in the world, but that's not really important. The bad weighs so much more because, as the quote shows, it only takes one mistake or event to ruin everything. Like how one event can give a person lifelong PTSD. Positive events don't work like that. There is no even that can give a person lifelong bliss. And these positive events will also not make up for the one bad thing that ruins your life.

So please spare someone from experiencing that one mistake by not bringing them here.

I am so sick of this perspective. No one is actually pressuring you to procreate. Feeling pressured to do something just because other people are? What are you, twelve? It really pisses me off, especially with those freaks on that regretful parent sub. It’s actually incredibly easy to not get IVF treatment, I swear.

I hope this is the right community for me to discuss my views that have been circulating in my mind for awhile.

An asteroid (or many) wiped the once mighty dinosaurs that shook the ground as they walked. Numerous of our civilizations have been killed due to conflicts and massive environmental shifts. Given all this, I wonder how does the human race exactly ‘die out’ with the collapsing birthrates observed in most parts of the world.

Because quite simply, I don’t see what’s there for humanity and its future generations to look forward to. We’ve got:

* Unregulated AI that’s usurping career pathways and unfairly dominating the creative industries and even STEM pathways.

* Quality of education going downhill with literacy and comprehension rates scoring extremely low among school students.

* Climate change that’s disturbing habitats, causing irreversible damage, and destroying the only one planet we call home. People are losing their lives due to climate change on a daily basis that we aren’t aware of.

* People working 3 jobs just to be able to afford basic groceries and manage rent payments.

* Medical insurance cosplaying as the actual Grim Reaper to patients who need life-saving emergency care.

* Increased racism, sexism, homophobia, and societal regressions.

I would feel very guilty for a child to inherit all these societal evils. I can totally imagine a child turning their back to us, and questioning our actions and impassiveness that led to this situation. We are very quick to point fingers at our ancestors for being so close-minded, without realizing that we are the same too. We are merely repeating history.

I would love to hear your opinions !

Why do we reproduce?

Consent is important, and most people agree with this for most concepts. But it's simply ignored or seen as ridiculous when we mention that babies don't have consent in being created. Why the difference?

In the way that people excuse parental abuse because they see them as inherently good to their children or that they see their children as ungrateful for complaining. Even in childfree spaces they sympathize a lot with parents even bad ones but the same isn't extended to their children

I saw a post on her about how children did not consent to be born.

How could consent be established for a concept? How would you gain consent from the idea of a child? From a zygote? From a foetus?

Because all of our parents did not get our consent to be born, are they all at fault for our personhood and shall be condemned as such?

If this was established as a legal standard what would it look like?

Just trying to fix sleep, as I'm a lighter sleeper and sleeping with a roommate, and I just can't believe how bad sleep deprivation is, and I can't imagine how hard it is for someone who has a sleeping disorder. Sleep might be one of those things that requires us to basically do nothing, and yet it's a privilege to get a good night's sleep. It's crazy that everything in life is a struggle

If you birth some infants your basically working hundreds of hours for free and spending thousands of dollars on behalf of billionaires

You get zero financial benefit from having a child you can be fired from your job just because your employer replaced you with ai

Your child becomes a wage slave on behalf of a government that doesn’t give a shit about if we live or die

The deal of governments and corporations get your child’s working years producing profit and taxes while you are stuck with the child care bill bill is an atrocious deal

A lot of people are like you pay us dog shit wages everything is skyrocketing in price yet you have the audacity to complain about us not having children

It’s literally the case of the wolves are complaining that not enough sheep are reproducing