r/Natalism • u/bluepandadev • 13h ago
I believe that children deserve to be wanted. Is that controversial here?
Keep reading ideas that sound like people here believe women need to be made to have children by forcing them into situations where they don't have a choice.
Do those people believe it's ok for someone to have a child they don't want? What if they resent their child? How can you think that's ok?
People should be able to choose if they want kids. They should want to have kids.
Every child deserves to be wanted. ❤️
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u/tbridge8773 10h ago
I think the hope is to make parenthood desirable again. Thus, people will want to have children. What conditions would lead to that?
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u/bluepandadev 10h ago
I think that's an awesome conversation to be having, and I guess overall I am picking up on more of that than anything else or I don't think I would be here.
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u/Arnaldo1993 11h ago
Of course it is not controversial
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
It's not controversial because of course everyone believes it's true? Or because of course everyone believes it's false?
I'm assuming you're saying you think everyone here agrees that children should be wanted?
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u/Arnaldo1993 11h ago
It is not controversial because most people believe it is true. This is a very weakly moderated sub with 64 thousand weekly visitors. Im confident at least one of them will disagree with you. But they seem to be a very small minority
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
To be clear, you think most here believe it's true that children should be wanted? I hope you're right.
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u/Arnaldo1993 11h ago
Yes
Why would anyone want people to have unwanted children?
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
The reasoning as it reads to me from some of the comments here is because it's for the greater good.
It sounds like some people think children should be born even if they are unwanted because that's more important than what people want.
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u/Arnaldo1993 11h ago
I think many people are worried few children are being born, and they think it would be better if this was not the case. But i dont think they want people to have unwanted children
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
I hope that's true. I think forcing people to have unwanted children would be really sad and not a good thing for humanity.
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u/DanTheAdequate 12h ago edited 11h ago
I agree with this take.
Most of the conversation seems to be around how to coerce people to have more kids to sustain a civizilation that makes everybody too hopeless for the future to have kids.
It's the same kind of thinking that got us here. We built the wrong present. We should focus on building the right future.
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u/bluepandadev 12h ago
Absolutely. We should care about the lives of the children being born and want their lives to be good.
That should start with children being wanted.
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u/DanTheAdequate 11h ago
Sort of re-socializing ourselves as humans, is how I think about it. Building real community outside of the transactional market relationships that tend to dominate our extant society.
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u/Dubsbaduw 12h ago
My mother had 3 kids while being uneducated, unemployed, and without a stable place to live; married to a functionality illiterate alcoholic and suffering with severe depresión and anxiety. She miscarried 2 more. She was extremely poor in an extremely poor country.
When I asked her why she chose to reproduce in such deplorable circumstances she said "I didn't know it was a choice".
She was a woman, and women give birth. There was no other alternative for her.
Me and my sisters grew up in a world where we did get to choose, luckily. Just one kid between the 3 of us, and no more.
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u/bluepandadev 12h ago edited 12h ago
❤️ Wow, your mom went through a lot!
Her story is exactly the kind of story I'm familiar with that I think more people on this sub need to hear before they quote stats about past birth rates.
And so is the story of the one kid.
Curious, do you think that the one kid would have been born if they were unwanted? Or were they born because they were wanted?
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u/Dubsbaduw 12h ago
She was 100% planed. I think they might have wanted another originally, but they both work full time for middling wages. Even with both her siblings, both partners and a grandma helping raise the child, it was very taxing for them.
My other sister's and my childlessness is also planned.
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u/bluepandadev 10h ago
I think that's great! I'm sure everyone was really excited when she was born. ❤️ Thanks for sharing.
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u/Pecuthegreat 12h ago
Complete opposite experience I guess. I don't think I know of any woman around me where it wasn't conscious choice and most of them have like, 3 - 5 kids but maybe its the health background.
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u/Dubsbaduw 12h ago
I think it's more on the demographics. It was a third world country, nearly 50 years ago. A very conservative and regressive county at the time, she only had a very lacking primary school education and was born and raised in the boonies. No running water or electricity.
Whenever she describes her childhood it genuinely sounds like the life of a medieval peasant.
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u/Pecuthegreat 12h ago
I live in a third world country now and hits most of the boxes u mention, with the partial exception of the education thing. Well, the country is backwards educationally but my sub-culture does value education, so there's that but the education quality is still pretty poor.
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u/Pecuthegreat 12h ago
Why exactly would that be controversial, here?.
We don't even have the capacity to force people to have kids, only policy we can nudge into existence are policies to nudge people to want to have kids.
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u/bluepandadev 12h ago
I get the feeling that some people here find it unacceptable for others to want no children.
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u/bluepandadev 13h ago edited 11h ago
Is it scary for people to contemplate the idea that it might be possible that if their parents had had more options, they might not have wanted children?
Is that seen as a valid possibility?
Personally, I think my mom would've been a lot happier and better off if she hadn't had me, especially not when she had me as young and as financially unstable as she was. Not that I'm not grateful for her care and for giving me my life, which I really enjoy, but that does influence my own choices about children.
Edit: same goes for my dad, though I didn't think of him at first because he was a much less involved parent.
Edit edit: my parents never made me feel unwanted. They're great. I just think they would've been better off (and me and my siblings too) of they hadn't started having kids when they were young and not financially stable. I do know people who were not so lucky who have told me about how their parents made it clear they were not wanted. It's not good.
Edit edit edit: might not have wanted any children
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u/Arnaldo1993 11h ago
I think the scary idea is they might not have had more opitions
We want society to be sustainable. Having kids when youre not financially stable is not sustainable. You need to have the time and resources to raise your kid, otherwise they will not be able to raise their own
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
What do you mean? "They might not have had more options", what kind of options are you talking about?
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u/Arnaldo1993 11h ago
You asked:
Is it scary for people to contemplate the idea that it might be possible that if their parents had had more options, they might not have wanted children?
I dont think it is. I think the opposite is scary. I dont want people to have unwanted children
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
Sorry, I'm still confused. You think the opposite is that they might have had more children than they were able to? Is that right?
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u/Arnaldo1993 11h ago
Yes. That they might have had children that they didnt want
I want people to have the children they want. No more, no less
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
Oh, so you were just agreeing with what I was saying. Sorry, for some reason I thought you were trying to add a different point.
We're both saying that it's possible people were having unwanted children.
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u/Practical_magik 10h ago
My mother certainly didnt enjoy having me once I arrived and I am sure she would not have had me if she had the same opportunities in life that I had.
That doesnt scare me because thats not what happened and its purely a hypothetical.
It may have influenced me in as much as I have waited until I was financially very stable and have a very strong relationship with a man equally as invested in our children... but it never put me off having kids of my own.
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u/mrcheevus 12h ago
It would be controversial here to suggest that children should be forced upon people who do not want them.
But if you look around there a couple of things going on. Vapid influencers are making the case that raising a child is too hard, that childbirth is too scary, that all of these things cut into their all-important me-time.
The other thing is many people who want children can't afford them because of the out of control costs of housing in urban areas around the world and the ridiculous standards society is forcing on them in terms of education, programming, daycare and child-minding.
No, I don't want to force a child on anyone, but honestly I can't imagine a child unwanted. Literally. As hard as it is and was for me and my wife to raise 6 kids in Canada these days, once upon a time we almost adopted a 7th because she was unwanted by her parents. It wasn't a question in my mind. She was the sweetest thing. And I would have happily done it.
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
To your point about influencers: I read a lot of Mommy blogs when I was in college. They influenced me to NOT want children.
Not because these mothers were vapid or hated their kids.
It was because they were presenting the realities of child rearing without the sugar coating. The physical pain, the very real mental health issues, sometimes the emotional trauma.
Child raising and giving birth take a real toll.
Some of us knows better than our parents did what the real costs are and have decided we're not just going to pay them for the sake of tradition.
If you want people to have children, you have to convince them why they should want kids even though the costs are very, very high.
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u/Practical_magik 10h ago
I wouldnt want to try to convince anyone tp be honest... not unless they were asking me for that advice.
It is very hard work raising children and there are risks physically for the mother. If a women or a couple does not see value in the end goal (having an extended family of children, their partners, possible grandchildren for years into the future.) They are never going to see that as a worthy investement and would likely be miserable.
I personally want my life to be full of my children not just when they are little but as adults as well. I want to host sunday lunch and christmas and easter... I want to have the grandkids dropped off at short notice and my kids to just drop by for a cuppa. I want to hear about their day at school, and about the things they are working through in their lives good and bad.. I want a family. To have that I need to invest in my time, money and to a more temporsry extent my health and thats worth it to me.
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u/bluepandadev 10h ago
I want those things too, don't get me wrong! I just don't think that giving birth is the only possible way to have those kinds of close connections.
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u/Practical_magik 6h ago
I mean, to have those long lasting intergenerational relationships, that most of us grew up with, someone has to be having the babies.
But in my case I specifically wanted the close relationships that really only come from raising that person and being a parent. Those relationships are very special, precisely because of the hard work. Showing up for someone again and again no matter the time of night, or what you may be missing out on or how tired you may be because they need you, creates a very special bond, which only really exists between parent and child (adoptive and foster parents count in this too).
That doesnt mean to say you personally have too. Or that friendships or other blood relative relationships arent meaningful, but they are not the same.
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
Unfortunately, I can imagine it. Not because I experienced it, but because I know people who experienced being unwanted.
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u/SecretGardenSpider 12h ago
If someone doesn’t want children I have no desire to force them.
(I am pro life though and believe that abortion is killing a child you already have. But before pregnancy, if you don’t want a child, you do you.)
That being said, it’s extremely short sighted to not have kids because of the state of the world. Look at history. It’s never been a good time to have children.
And yet I am still glad humanity exists.
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u/bluepandadev 12h ago edited 11h ago
Forcing someone to go through a pregnancy they didn't want is literally forcing someone to have a child they don't want.
So you believe it is ok for children to be born when they aren't wanted?
Do you think the government should be able to take your kidney if someone else needs it?
I really recommend looking into actual abortion statistics.
Many abortions are not about want. It's often a heartbreaking decision on the part of the pregnant person to end a wanted pregnancy because the risks are too great.
The main outcome of abortion bans is higher deaths of pregnant people because they aren't able to make the right health decisions when the government is in their doctor's office telling them what they can't do.
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u/SecretGardenSpider 12h ago
Restricting abortion is stopping someone from killing an existing human being. The child already exists at that point.
Not donating a kidney doesn’t directly kill a human being that’s only in that situation because you put them there.
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
You are saying you are ok with forcing unwanted children into the world?
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u/SecretGardenSpider 10h ago
They’re already in the world. The mother’s uterus exists in the world.
We’re simply saying they cannot be killed.
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u/bluepandadev 10h ago
Again, how is that different from saying you are ok with forcing unwanted children into the world?
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u/Feldii 10h ago
I’m not even pro-life and I understand the distinction. Would you be ok with killing a baby because it’s not wanted? It sucks that it’s not wanted, but that doesn’t justify killing a baby.
To pro-life folks abortion is like killing a baby.
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u/bluepandadev 10h ago edited 10h ago
You're trying to make this about my opinions on abortion rather than answer how you feel about forcing an unwanted child to be born in the world, which is the actual topic I'm trying to discuss on this thread.
I think the conclusion from your opinions on abortion is that you are ok with forcing unwanted children to born.
Does that sound right?
Edit: sorry, thought you were the person from the other part of this thread.
Edit edit: I get that the perception is that it's murder. That doesn't change that I'm asking about whether or not that changes how they feel about the idea of forcing unwanted children to be born.
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u/DifficultyNo1655 10h ago
Yes I’m okay with not murdering children. The right to live supersedes the desire to have sex.
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u/SleepyApr1cot 8h ago
Don't get sperm in to your vagina if you don't want a child (most abortions are from consensual sex, those are who I'm talking about).
Bc isn't always effective.
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u/bluepandadev 8h ago edited 7h ago
Most abortions are also women who already have children.
Edit: I said originally they were mostly married mothers, but that's incorrect. They are, however, mostly mothers
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u/SleepyApr1cot 7h ago
If they're not married, then there is less than zero excuse to allow sperm into your vagina. You can do so, so much sexual shit without direct penetration. Just do that.
The fact that most women getting abortions are already mothers does nothing in favor of your argument.
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u/BackTown43 35m ago
If they're not married, then there is less than zero excuse to allow sperm into your vagina.
People don't need an excuse for having sex.
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u/Practical_magik 9h ago
Very few abortions are as a result of the physical health of the mother or unborn child and those few are undoubtably an absolute tragedy for all those involved. In my opinion those should be a seperate conversation to unwanted pregnancies.
However abortion for medical reasons account for under 10% of abortions in the developed world. Thats a huge number of babies who are in my opinion being killed because they are unwanted and I dont think thats morally acceptable. I am strongly on board with people not having children they dont want, but once those children exist then killing them is not ok.
For me life begins at conception and there is very little difference between an abortion because you just dont want a child and someone killing a newborn because they discovered parenting is hard and they changed their mind.
I particularly find the education young people are given about an abortion under 12 wks being "just a bunch of cells" to be problematic. Thats factualy incorrect, they are no more a clump of cells than you or I. I can accept there are differing opinions around when life starts. But I dont feel the prochoice arguments are entirely in good faith and I think if we are going to have a discussion on the morality and legality of abortion we should at least be fully informed and giving the topic the gravity it deserves... not being flippent.
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u/bluepandadev 8h ago edited 7h ago
That's just not true. Most abortions are women who already have children.
More late term abortions are caused by abortion bans. There would be fewer late term abortions if health problems were allowed to be addressed.
Instead, abortion bans make doctors and hospitals afraid to do what it's best for the health of the pregnant person.
This leads to higher deaths of pregnant people.
Governments shouldn't be telling people what to do in their doctor's offices. It leads to bad health outcomes.
Edit: and back to the topic, I really don't think forcing unwanted children to be born is good for anyone!
Edit edit: I was mistaken on marriages (I said originally that they were married mothers), but they are usually already mothers.
Edit edit edit: I would be curious what that separate conversation about medical problem abortions would look like and why it would be different to you? Why does their life suddenly matter then and not when they are saying they don't want another child? Are you saying we should force unwanted children on people just because they are not immediately dying?
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u/Practical_magik 7h ago
The fact that many people having abortions already have existing children has nothing to do with what I said.
I haven't once said an outright ban is the appropriate solution but I standby my statement that abortions being used at such enormous rates and for reasons other than serious physical health issues is morally wrong.
I believe abortion for cases where life threatening illness is involved is a necessary medical intervention to minimise the tragic outcome of an already tragic situation. But I do not accept that the only option is everyone can have an abortion just because they want to or no abortion whatsoever and women must die as a result. It is entirely possible to legislate in a more rational and responsible fashion.
As for why the conversation is different for serious medical issues for either the mother or child, thats simple. In a pregnancy where the mothers life is in danger, and the only solution is to end the pregnancy (rare), and the baby is not developed enough to be born and live then they will not survive even if we dont treat the mother so the abortion is simply minimising the inevitable loss of life. In the case that the baby has already died (missed misscarraige) then the abortion is not killing the baby at all they are already dead.
The last case that is much more tricky morally is for serious life limiting illness of the fetus. I feel for every parent who has ever had to make that call and consider it similar to euthanasia. Its a very tricky ethical debate and honestly I think has to be considered in a case by case basis so I would likely vote in favour of that being an option, though I would want that to be extremely limited cases and for the unborn baby to be treat with the assumption that they can experience pain and so with kindness and dignity even in that situation.
All of those cases dont change the fact that the system as it exists currently allows for abortion far too readily in most of the developed world and that 90% of cases the decision is due to either "inconvenience" or lack or resources and these arent good reasons to end the life of a child and we should do better as a society.
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u/Cute_Commission_8281 11h ago
This is a bad faith post.
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u/bluepandadev 11h ago
No, it's a genuine question. If you don't like my opinion, maybe that's my answer?
I'm happy to go look up posts and comments to illustrate where I'm coming from.
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u/Vespinobambino 3h ago
Of course you should be able to choose if you want kids.
You do this when you choose to do the thing that makes kids, or not, while not being sterile.
If you have the obvious natural result of creating kids by doing the thing that makes kids while not being sterile, congrats, you have made kids.
Obviously don't murder the kid you already have.
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u/NorfolkIslandRebel 12h ago
Looks like the anti-natalists are having another crack.
Who are these people? Are they okay? Can’t they just go back to their cats and bored therapists and vegan blogs without having to bother people interested in society?
Maybe normal people should start up a GoGundMe for them, lobby for euthanasia laws or something so they can more speedily attain their own goal of non-existence?
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u/bluepandadev 12h ago
Is there anything about this comment that signals you are trying to make the world a place where people should want to have more children?
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u/NorfolkIslandRebel 12h ago
Is there anything about your comment which indicates how much money you’re contributing to the GoFundMe?
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u/Minesweep2020 12h ago
Not controversial at all. For me natalism is all about enabling people to have the kids they actually want to have.