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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy I don't want to have children.
I've been thinking about this for a while, and I decided not to have children. The reason, climate change.
I don't want my children to live in a world where the ozone layer is shrinking and no water.
Thats why I don't want to have children.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/23/children-bear-brunt-climate-change-new-study
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Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)ask myself, "What are you people THINKING???!!"
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)they have very large families with the intent of one day controlling the vote, and taking us "back" to being a Christian nation. People like the Duggars and Bates get their own TV shows, and none of this is mentioned on them, but their goal is a take over of government.
MADem
(135,425 posts)A lot of kids would look at the iPads and iPhones and music and gaming and fashions and all the stuff kids like, and then look at that Quiver Full and figure out that the Full part is shorthand for Full of Shit.
I know a lot of late middle aged closet hippie/Save The Earth-type Democratic Party "kids" whose parents were status-quo Republicans. The kids don't always follow along! The ones who break away from their parents that make the news engage in some measure of "outrageous" activity, like getting into porn or getting busted for drugs, or even working for causes their parents hate, or supporting views contrary to their parents in a very public way--but I'd wager that there are a lot of offspring we never hear about who go their own way and blow off the family teachings.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)The more children you have...very broad statement. Hopefully most kids will turn out liberal. Liberals need to have children to, to add to the greatness that liberals are.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)was that the less intelligent breed faster.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)but they are growing, and the ideology is ripe in the home school.world.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)A lot of us look at the way things are trending, and have decided much the same. We're leaving those who come after us a world left in far worse shape than the one we were given.
yuiyoshida
(41,864 posts)I plan to have no kids.. ever.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)niece and nephew (in their late 20s now).
vt_native
(484 posts)I always thought the inevitable environmental collapse would come after I die (I'm almost 50), but I think I may live to see it.
I always wonder about people who have having children in these times, what are they thinking? Are they thinking?
Debbie Downer or just a realist ? You decide. 
applegrove
(118,816 posts)of humanity since I was 23. I could not bring up a child while targeted by a psychopath. Been about a year since he last tried to set me up. I'll be 50 in a few months. Not a life anyone would ever choose. But I can find meaning these days. And I feel sorry for those who are in his cult. My relationship to humanity is so much different that what I imagined it would be as a kid. I wanted to be a nun with an orphanage. A real doer. A very hard worker. That is how I quietly was in the workplace. Now I am a thinker and coonect through quiet contemplation and refection. Not a doer at all these days. Not a mother. A victim of ptsd trying to make the world a better place and growing every day.
GuntherGebelWilliams
(58 posts)made him cry (now he's considering a vasectomy). He also vowed to stop flying after the world's recent climate-change report made him cry.
PUBLISHED: 07:36 EST, 28 September 2013
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2436551/A-weatherman-breaks-tears-vows-NEVER-fly-grim-climate-change-report.html
UPDATE: UPDATE:
Should Climate Change Stop Us from Having Babies?
March 5, 2015
by Eric Holthaus
My wife and I just had a baby, and it's quickly becoming the best decision we ever made. Even though his future is uncertain, the knowledge that there's still time left to turn things around has become a tremendously powerful motivating factor in our lives. Our baby has brought us back from the brink. It's impossible to be hopeless with a newborn. Climate change has changed me. And I don't think I'm the only one.
So there's that.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)We all have challenges.
To quote Bladerunner, "More life, fucker."
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)Nor do I want to continue seeing (and any potential children seeing) mountain top removal, the poaching of endangered species to extinction, further destruction of rain forests, the further encroachment of suburbia on the wilderness, etc. etc.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)2.1 on average (based on my informal research on the forbes 400 list).
maybe they know something we don't.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)they are going to be the last to feel the pinch. As long as they can hire people with guns they will have what they need.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Dawgs
(14,755 posts)It's been as much as a problem as climate change and for just as long.
It's the reason I get ill when I hear of anyone I know having children.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)Without a younger workforce society would grind to a halt. Also, future generations may well be the ones to solve these planetary issues.
Yes over population is an issue, but eliminating future generations is not the answer.
Response to Marrah_G (Reply #32)
Name removed Message auto-removed
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)I assumed that meant you thought no one should have children.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)would be so bad. If the human population dwindles and dwindles gradually, it would be a very good thing for the other life forms on this planet ...
... unless the cockroaches evolved and took over and set up a nightmarish dystopian society, the bastards.
hatrack
(59,593 posts)
Wee bit dramatic I think...
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Oktober
(1,488 posts)I was more concerned with how you interact with the world if you feel ill at the thought of children....
That's the over dramatic bit...
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Got it.
Oktober
(1,488 posts)
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)most western countries have a near zero population growth and a birth rate that sometimes falls below replacement...
sP
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)We may not be contributing to the geometric growth, but we still take up far more than our share of planetary resources.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)To be honest I dont want a large family, but I dont see a problem with somebody who does.
KT2000
(20,588 posts)is one that exploits everything in sight, and that is where the world is headed. I did not have children but I do work for causes that attempt to save this environment but I am always aware that people who do have children are not participating. What are they thinking? Is it instant gratification over the future for their children. I don't get it.
enough
(13,262 posts)I see this from both sides, since having my children was the most important and revelatory thing that has happened to me in my life. So I feel sad my children won't have that experience. But I also understand that it is people having more children that is going to undo us all in the end.
Wherever I go, everybody is having children right now, or already has two or three young children. There are lots of wonderful children everywhere. So there's no way anyone has to think they must have children in order to keep the human race going.
What I have concluded is that people who do not feel actively called to have children should feel free not to have them, and those who do feel called should do it consciously and sparingly.
safeinOhio
(32,727 posts)Stuck with it, no regrets.
Trillo
(9,154 posts)It is highly moral to consider the welfare of your potential child and their chances for a happy and fulfilling life, to balance that question with your own thinking and experience, and to choose with the best interests of the child in mind.
one_voice
(20,043 posts)I probably wouldn't have children. It's not that I haven't loved every second of being a mom; it's the state of the world. I don't know that I'd want to bring a child into the world the way it is. Not just climate change.
My youngest will be 24 and my oldest just turned 29. Neither of them have children. My oldest-my daughter-doesn't want children. My son is still unsure.
corkhead
(6,119 posts)I Have never regretted it for the reasons stated in this entire thread. I guess I was ahead of my time.
moondust
(20,006 posts)I made that choice about 30 years ago and have never regretted it.
Marr
(20,317 posts)I'm 42. I wish I could honestly say that my choice to not have children was the result of some enlightened concern for society or the planet, but really... I just like sleeping in. I like having freedom. I like dating, I like evenings with friends, I like working on my own projects, etc.
brooklynite
(94,745 posts)I like spending time with them, but at the end of the day I want them to go home with someone else...
Marr
(20,317 posts)My little nieces and nephews are always happy to see me, and I can punch out at the end of the day. :p
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Especially in our current economic state, having more than two adults helping to support each child is a good way to do some of the good without adding to the resource overconsumption problems attendant on overpopulation.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)point would be cruel considering the state of the planet, but ultimately my decision has more to do with my lack of parenting instinct. I just have never had any interest in raising children. I love my nieces and nephews but I know for sure that motherhood is not for me.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)Unfortunately, people who care about the environment, and are generally liberal, will stop reproducing, leaving room for republicans to continue multiplying at an increasingly high rate.
Anyway, it's too late for me. I had kids, who are now almost grown up. 4 of them. To reduce the cognitive dissonance I tell myself someone on the left has to have the babies to offset the right wing. But of course, now I worry about their future. I'm just thankful we're in the perfect place (geographically) to be for climate change. Well, except for the possible increase in tornadoes, but we can dodge those.
mahina
(17,705 posts)the best place to escape climate change?
Not here, that's for sure.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)northern city in Canada. Not near an ocean. More like on a prairie. Our only issue would likely be not enough water because of drought due to a lack of snow pack on the Rockies. But that could be mitigated, as there are large bodies of water nearby and low population densities. Another issue as I mentioned would be an increase in tornadoes (they don't happen often but we've had bad ones - when I was a kid an F4 killed 27 people in my area). But overall, we'd be much better off than others.
So far, interesting changes we've seen due to climate change have been an increase in snow in the winter and 'cloudburst' downpours during storms in the summer during non-drought years, and then, long lived droughts (last one was 10 years or so) where we are under strict water rationing. However we do get our water from a very large river that has never been in any danger of drying up - the only time that would be a risk would be if the snow pack in the Rockies was gone, and the main glaciers that feed it were to completely disappear (they are retreating but there are many tributaries, it would be hard to see this particular river completely dry up for a long time to come). We actually haven't seen an increase in tornadic activity - there has been a decrease from when I was a child. But that could change.
Anyhow, I know nothing is a guarantee, but I do feel like we're better off here.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)Anchorage, Alaska, where I live, will still be habitable for a while, but I really hope everybody doesn't move up here. I came to Alaska for the space and lack of people.
Hekate
(90,837 posts)Just figure out what you want to do with you life, and go do it.
We have 7 billion people on this planet now.
wundermaus
(1,673 posts)Of what I currently know and understand regarding the remaining few years we have left on this planet...
My life is almost over so I am fortunate but I am no less distressed for the current generation and all the future generations that will never be.
A few months ago I wrote a letter to the President of the United States about what I believe is the imitate extinction of all life on earth. I have not mailed it because I would be admitting it is true to that extent thus I would "officially" let the cat out of the bag that I must be nuts.
You know, the guy on the street corner with the hand written sign saying the end of the world is at hand. That would be me... but god has nothing to do with it. That distinction is exclusively our own.
The scenes of the movie The Titanic where passengers are oblivious to their fate... except a few come to mind.
What would you do if you knew?
Would you tell the passengers there are no life boats?
That within a few precious years all life will come to an end on earth?
I can not bring myself to send the most important letter I ever wrote.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)"People shouldn't have kids because we might all get killed in a nuclear war."
Well, a whole lot of Baby Boomers were born and most of them are still here because their parents were optimistic in spite of the United States having dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Your example is cute, but scientists think that what we've done is irreversible.
Here's a recent example of what's to come as early as 2050.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-droughts-will-be-the-worst-in-1-000-years1/
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Last week they said we would have 40 degree weather today. It is 75 (Florida). I believe we need to plan for climate change, but I don't think it is as dreary as some seem to believe.
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)And, it's not belief, it's a fact that's already happening. Your ignorance on climate change doesn't change that.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Your right ignorance is no excuse. Read up about the ice age of 2000's. it was so feared that the media was all over it for years in the 70's. are you saying the Scoentists were lying or just wrong?
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)The other global climate scientists, that were much larger in number, were correct about global warming. And, of course, we know this because we are seeing signs (all the time) that global warming is real (rising seas, extreme storms, extreme weather events, etc.).
We aren't seeing any signs of an ice age.
hatrack
(59,593 posts)The supposed "global cooling" consensus among scientists in the 1970s — frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can't make up their minds — is a myth, according to a survey of the scientific literature of the era. The '70s was an unusually cold decade. Newsweek, Time, The New York Times and National Geographic published articles at the time speculating on the causes of the unusual cold and about the possibility of a new ice age.
But Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends.
The study reports, "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. "A review of the literature suggests that, to the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking about the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales."
"I was surprised that global warming was so dominant in the peer-reviewed literature of the time," says Peterson, who was also a contributor to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report.
EDIT
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-02-20-global-cooling_N.htm
EDIT
The faked image illustrates one of the fake-skeptics’ favorite myths: The 1970s Ice Age Scare. It goes something like this:
In the 1970s the scientists were all predicting global cooling and a future ice age.
The media served as the scientists’ lapdog parroting the alarming news.
The ice age never came—the scientists were dead wrong.
Now those same scientists are predicting global warming (or is it “climate change” now?)
The entire purpose of this myth is to suggest that scientists can’t be trusted, that they will say/claim/predict whatever to get their names in the newspapers, and that the media falls for it all the time. They were wrong about ice ages in the 1970s, they are wrong now about global warming.
But why fake the 1977 cover? Since, according to the fake-skeptics, there was so much news coverage of the imminent ice age why not just use a real 1970s cover?
I searched around on Time’s website and looked through all of the covers from the 1970s. I was shocked (shocked!) to find not a single cover with the promise of an in-depth, special report on the Coming Ice Age. What about this cover from December 1973 with Archie Bunker shivering in his chair entitled “The Big Freeze”? Nope, that’s about the Energy Crisis. Maybe this cover from January 1977, again entitled “The Big Freeze”? Nope, that’s about the weather. How about this one from December 1979, “The Cooling of America”? Again with the Energy Crisis.
Now, there really were news articles in the 1970s about scientists predicting a coming ice age. Time had a piece called “Another Ice Age?” in 1974. Time’s competition, Newsweek, joined in with “The Cooling World” in 1975. People have collected lists and lists of “Coming Ice Age” stories from newspapers, magazines, books, tv shows, etc. throughout the 1970s.
EDIT
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/06/04/the-1970s-ice-age-myth-and-time-magazine-covers-by-david-kirtley/
cilla4progress
(24,777 posts)about climate changes. I live in the Pacific NW, inland Washington state. My home burned in a wildfire here in '94. We rebuilt, yes on the same spot. There is very little fuel in our immediate vicinity (it all burned in '94), and our home and land is very fire-proofed. But we've had huge fires around here almost every year, and the smoke is hideous. I won't be surprised if there is a lot of lung cancer here in the near future.
I had one child with my husband. We've been married now 35 years. We were married 13 years before having her. This was due to taking the matter extremely seriously.
I agree with what you all are saying. I'm quite certain I won't be a grandparent, which is OK, though sad.
I hope there isn't too much suffering. Also the animals.
I hope we are all over-reacting. It's good to find kindred souls here.
Wella
(1,827 posts)It's a thoroughly logical (and responsible) decision based on the scenarios of a warming planet.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)But I also don't think badly of those who choose not to.
Oktober
(1,488 posts)The answer is smart kids... who turn into smart adults and eventually get us off this rock and spread out into the rest of the solar system.
I have high hopes.
Both DH and I are engineers. Statistically speaking, apparently two engineers are more likely to produce scientists rather than engineers. I'm still in denial, working on acceptance of that fact.
Both kids are heading towards research I think. One is likely going for biomathematics and the other is strongly interested in theoretical physics.
The oldest has now taken as much math as I took in college to get my engineering degree. And he still has one more year of high school left. The youngest will do the same by the end of his high school career too.
I have hope for their future, despite the strong anti-intellectual stance of too many Americans.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)so I had only 2 children. A few years after their births it became apparent that cancer had a genetic pattern on their mothers side. It took a while but thanks to the wonders of modern molecular methods we know there ixs an awful BRCA plus variant that came through from their maternal grandfather and plagues the lineage.
My daughter is a carrier, and she refused to have children, she's now got menopause in her sights. So, it looks like she will achieve her desired result. My son also a carrier, and his wife decided to have one child. By chance that kid doesn't carry it.
I write this only to say, there are many reasons for choosing to limit family size even down to choosing no children. As it turned out awareness of cancer promoting genes turned out to have stronger influence on my descendants than my interest in population control and the environment.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)While I would never encourage someone who doesn't want kids to have them anyway, all of you without kids need to think hard about what a no-child policy really implies.
Neither of my sons has children, and it's looking as if neither one ever will. I'm sorry that I apparently won't have grandchildren, but I long ago told them they are not required to make me a grandmother.
Vinca
(50,310 posts)Each to his own. My reasons weren't as noble as overpopulation or climate change, it was not liking kids very much. I'm happy to hold someone's beautiful baby for a few minutes, but that's about as much as I can handle.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)there is a part of me that wants to tell my kids to not have kids for this very reason (not that it's my decision). 
Jamastiene
(38,187 posts)For the longest time, I didn't want to have children because I didn't want the responsibility AND I didn't want to pass on the mental health misery my family suffers from along with the physical problems that run in my family really bad. Almost everyone in my family gets heart disease really young and super high cholesterol even from a very young age, not from eating habits, the hereditary kind and most of us are on Zoloft for depression. It's awful. I wouldn't want to make a mini-me. I might like the kid, but the kid would go through hell just to live their life. I wouldn't want to put anyone through that.
Then, when I paid my house off, I began wanting children. It is too late though, for me. I would not want to have a child without being married. I have seen how hard it is on single parents trying to raise a kid alone, especially when that parent is right at the poverty line and lives in impoverished areas like where I live. It is also too late because it is too late for me to find someone who would be willing to marry me. Even if I could find someone who could stand putting up with me, I would still need a sperm donor who would be willing to offer us a turkey baster full of critters.
I might would adopt if a miracle happened and someone ever would be willing to marry me, but miracles don't seem to happen for heathens like me, lol.
I respect your decision though. For a long time, that played into my decision not to have a kid too.
onenote
(42,769 posts)dem in texas
(2,674 posts)My husband and I were eating out last week and a grandmother, daughter and 3 or 4 year granddaughter were sitting in the booth across from us. We watched as both grandmother and mother talked sweet and gave lots of hugs to the little girl. I remarked to my husband that there were so many children who never saw that type of love and its lack was such a tragedy in the child's life and for society as a whole.
We can't solve all the problems of the world. We must leave some for future generations, but on a personal level, everyone can do some thing, a small measure to help save the climate, a small measure to help some helpless child or animal.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)I'm glad I have my three grown daughters, and I'm glad that two of them have their own kids for me to spoil, but my youngest has decided that she won't have kids, and I love her just as much. Personal choice.
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)And ignoring the part about climate change. Interesting.
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)denied myself the pure, unadulterated joy of watching them grow into the amazing young men they are today for anyone or anything.
So, from Cub Scouts, to youth sports, to the youngest one moving on to academic pursuits and eventually amassing enough scholarship money for us to afford his college; while the oldest went on to travel baseball, high school baseball, travel baseball and all-star teams, and now college baseball, I can't imagine my life without them in it.
In any case, I am flat-out fucking thrilled to have my sons.
But to each their own, and I respect the opinions of all who face that decision.
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)thinking about how much I love my boys, and I decided to give voice to it. I did not regard the OP voicing their reasons not to have children as "defensive". Why would you use that descriptor in response to a post delineating the unbridled joy my sons have brought to me?
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)There was no need for it.
BubbaFett
(361 posts)11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)Well, fuck it. He can fight with himself.
hunter
(38,328 posts)But my generation we've biologically scored less than replacement.
That's okay. There is no shortage of children in this world, and many need good homes.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)If there ain't no kids being raised by good people, there won't be anyone of conscience down the line to pick up the banner and try to fix what has been damaged.
The bastards are having children by the "quiverful." By refusing to have children - to raise them right and inculcate them with the morality of ecology and assistance to their fellow humans - there is an argument that says you've ceded the field, and the future, to those who have already torn the place up for profit and Jesus.
I have one daughter. Not having any more kids. Raising her as best I can. I feel OK about that.
It's not all darkness. Unless we surrender the future.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)appreciate all my kids have brought into my life. i also root for this generation that gets to address our messes. who know what they will come up with.
i do not have a crystal ball. what could be, does not dictate my choices today.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)a good life. Will give it more consideration this year.
taught_me_patience
(5,477 posts)Global warming didn't even enter my mind before having them. Life might get a little tougher, but I'm sure they'll survive ok.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)If you don't want kids, then don't have them. You don't need other reasons.
Me? I'm looking forward to grandkids.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Texasgal
(17,048 posts)are purely selfish. I went for education and didn't marry until late in my 30's. We wanted to travel and pursue our careers. Now that we've been married quite some time my husband has developed a very serious auto immune disease and his life could be cut short.
I decided long ago that I am okay with all of that. People are always asking why we don't have children, it's annoying. It was a choice that we made together and are quite happy with.
linuxman
(2,337 posts)Then again, we're not nearly as Malthusian as some can be.
We'd never think to denigrate someone for choosing not to have kids though. Frankly, having or not having children is nobody's business but the couple's. Be that as it may, there are always a few in this thread that can't help but talk about how the ones having children are ushering in the fall of civilization from the lofty perch of their cross.
My soon to be wife and I have talked about having children at length. We know what's right for us. We're well educated, (comparatively) well off, and conscientious people. According to some, we should forgo having kids to offset the families out there that don't have the sense to stop at a reasonable number (say, oh, maybe the amount you can expect to be able to feed and clothe?). That doesn't sit right with me. If the future depends on the children we have today, how is it that by refusing to have kids that we are somehow saving the future by ensuring that the only children born are to be from families with no sense of propriety in regard to the future themselves?
I don't see raising no children as a superior alternative to raising conscientious/smart children. Then again, childless couples rank somewhere alongside cornmeal in the long list of thoughts that dominate my daily thoughts and concerns.
Throd
(7,208 posts)
treestar
(82,383 posts)There are 5 billion people already. Plenty enough. No need to add to the population. Just didn't want to go through with it physically and saw no duty to. There are plenty of people.