I’ve always been enamored of babies, but I’ve known and asserted for as long as anyone can remember that I don’t want to have children. My sister has known and asserted for her whole life that she does want to have children. So to some extent it feels innate. When I was a kid I was told “don’t say you don’t want kids, that could easily change when you grow up.” But I’m in my mid-20s now and in a stable relationship, and I’ve never wavered on that point once in my life that I can remember. I still have ~15 years left to change my mind, but I’d be fairly surprised if I did.
Both my sister and I did a fair amount of babysitting, and while she found it very rewarding (and went on to work with kids professionally), I found it extremely draining and a constant struggle. I have fatigue problems and had lots of trouble keeping up with the kids; I constantly second-guessed how stern or lenient I should be with them; I was garbage at telling stories of any kind; I couldn’t keep running when they wanted to play tag; my arms got tired bouncing a crying baby; when one girl smeared her poop on the walls I just wanted to throw up my hands and cry. I often say that I love babies, but only because I can give them back.
I think there are a lot of things on top of that that make me a bad fit for parenting. I need a lot of sleep and a lot of alone time. I don’t always have my emotions very well under control and I know from experience how scary that can be for a child. I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish that don’t involve children, and I’d certainly have to make major changes to the way I live to accommodate a child. I also date people who don’t want children, so suddenly changing my mind on that point would be a dick move.
Another big one is pregnancy. While a lot of women my age (including my sister) go a bit crazy with the desire to physically be pregnant, I find the idea absolutely horrifying. I have enough health problems and hypochondria without adding pregnancy (and its after-effects) to the mix, and there’s also something I just innately find quite disturbing about it, to the point where I subconsciously avoid friends when they’re pregnant. I’m in a play right now where my character gets pregnant and the idea of donning a fake belly was so creepy to me that I could barely even talk about it, and even gesturing to my normal stomach and pretending there’s a baby there onstage makes me feel really uncomfortable.
So those are some of my many reasons. I think you can see pretty clearly that nearly every single factor points in the same direction, although there are two exceptions - (1) I really love the feeling of a soft warm baby in my arms, and (2) I am descended in an unbroken line from the very first self-replicating molecules, and it feels bad to, like, spit in the face of my fishy ancestors by stopping the line here. But those two things are not nearly enough to outweigh the others. So it’s a no from me.
This is such a thoughtful answer. Thanks for engaging with the question, I’ve also been thinking about this lately myself.
For me I also think I’m not going to have children. I’ve been engaging more with why I want them lately (I’m dreaming of growing old with a close-knit family with 3-7 kids), but I don’t think the state of the world is giving me that choice. Concretely, I’ve had enough experiences of trying to share responsibility for important problems with other people who can’t take them because of kids.
In general it’s hard to share important responsibilities, because there’s very few that I trust to step up to it, but also because many of the people keep explaining that they can’t take these responsibilities on (especially quickly), as they’ve made commitments to their spouses and children. There are just too many things I need to be responsible at this point in history, that this is a commitment I can’t make.
Perhaps the world will become increasingly stable as I grow older, meaning I can make these sorts of commitments, but I mostly expect the world to become more chaotic (though I’d like LW to become a more stable and valuable institution over the decades, so there’s that).
I do think about having a relationship like I know some people have, like Elon Musk, where he has ~6 kids but in many important ways is not responsible for them (e.g. doesn’t live with them). I think my parents might think I’m a monster for doing it, which pushes me against, but if I found the right partner who wanted something like that, I think I’d like it. (I think this is not a fair ask to make of people in general, but it’s a big world and for some people I’m sure this would be strongly positive sum.)
I think there’s a judo move here that I don’t want to skip over, where first I should actually engage with what it is that’s there to be wanted about having kids, and then engage with the reasons why I won’t choose that, as opposed to going along with what I feel I’m naturally going along (i.e. not having them). I don’t want to regret not having seriously considered it, or to realise I was lying to myself about not wanting, that doesn’t sound healthy. So I’ve been doing that more lately.
This is a good thoughtful response as well! I think the calculus is actually significantly different for men vs women, where the Elon Musk option is unlikely for men, but feels kind of unimaginable for women. Obviously not every single parent relationship in the world is gendered this way, but honestly I’d guess like 98% are, maybe more. And on inside view, you know I’d totally end up the mother figure in any relationship. On the other hand, I’d be fine living in a group house with someone who had a kid—indicating to me that it’s not participating inraising kids that I don’t want, but being responsible for raising kids. (Also the pregnancy thing, as I mentioned. Shudder.)
So yeah, if I were a man in a non-precipice world I think I could easily want kids. But that’s not the situation, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Being in a house with kids also sounds like something that would get me a bunch of things I want. I guess people in close knit communities used to have more availability for this—you could go help out at the nearby school, for example. My Dad lives in a pretty healthy community in The Netherlands, and for many years ran a weekly Chess club for the kids there, which had like 30-40 kids come every week. He works in the Chess industry and would help the strongest kids go to tournaments and more.
I notice there are several alternatives here that sound like things I’d find meaningful that don’t involve having kids myself. I’ll think more on them...
I’ve always been enamored of babies, but I’ve known and asserted for as long as anyone can remember that I don’t want to have children. My sister has known and asserted for her whole life that she does want to have children. So to some extent it feels innate. When I was a kid I was told “don’t say you don’t want kids, that could easily change when you grow up.” But I’m in my mid-20s now and in a stable relationship, and I’ve never wavered on that point once in my life that I can remember. I still have ~15 years left to change my mind, but I’d be fairly surprised if I did.
Both my sister and I did a fair amount of babysitting, and while she found it very rewarding (and went on to work with kids professionally), I found it extremely draining and a constant struggle. I have fatigue problems and had lots of trouble keeping up with the kids; I constantly second-guessed how stern or lenient I should be with them; I was garbage at telling stories of any kind; I couldn’t keep running when they wanted to play tag; my arms got tired bouncing a crying baby; when one girl smeared her poop on the walls I just wanted to throw up my hands and cry. I often say that I love babies, but only because I can give them back.
I think there are a lot of things on top of that that make me a bad fit for parenting. I need a lot of sleep and a lot of alone time. I don’t always have my emotions very well under control and I know from experience how scary that can be for a child. I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish that don’t involve children, and I’d certainly have to make major changes to the way I live to accommodate a child. I also date people who don’t want children, so suddenly changing my mind on that point would be a dick move.
Another big one is pregnancy. While a lot of women my age (including my sister) go a bit crazy with the desire to physically be pregnant, I find the idea absolutely horrifying. I have enough health problems and hypochondria without adding pregnancy (and its after-effects) to the mix, and there’s also something I just innately find quite disturbing about it, to the point where I subconsciously avoid friends when they’re pregnant. I’m in a play right now where my character gets pregnant and the idea of donning a fake belly was so creepy to me that I could barely even talk about it, and even gesturing to my normal stomach and pretending there’s a baby there onstage makes me feel really uncomfortable.
So those are some of my many reasons. I think you can see pretty clearly that nearly every single factor points in the same direction, although there are two exceptions - (1) I really love the feeling of a soft warm baby in my arms, and (2) I am descended in an unbroken line from the very first self-replicating molecules, and it feels bad to, like, spit in the face of my fishy ancestors by stopping the line here. But those two things are not nearly enough to outweigh the others. So it’s a no from me.
This is such a thoughtful answer. Thanks for engaging with the question, I’ve also been thinking about this lately myself.
For me I also think I’m not going to have children. I’ve been engaging more with why I want them lately (I’m dreaming of growing old with a close-knit family with 3-7 kids), but I don’t think the state of the world is giving me that choice. Concretely, I’ve had enough experiences of trying to share responsibility for important problems with other people who can’t take them because of kids.
In general it’s hard to share important responsibilities, because there’s very few that I trust to step up to it, but also because many of the people keep explaining that they can’t take these responsibilities on (especially quickly), as they’ve made commitments to their spouses and children. There are just too many things I need to be responsible at this point in history, that this is a commitment I can’t make.
Perhaps the world will become increasingly stable as I grow older, meaning I can make these sorts of commitments, but I mostly expect the world to become more chaotic (though I’d like LW to become a more stable and valuable institution over the decades, so there’s that).
I do think about having a relationship like I know some people have, like Elon Musk, where he has ~6 kids but in many important ways is not responsible for them (e.g. doesn’t live with them). I think my parents might think I’m a monster for doing it, which pushes me against, but if I found the right partner who wanted something like that, I think I’d like it. (I think this is not a fair ask to make of people in general, but it’s a big world and for some people I’m sure this would be strongly positive sum.)
I think there’s a judo move here that I don’t want to skip over, where first I should actually engage with what it is that’s there to be wanted about having kids, and then engage with the reasons why I won’t choose that, as opposed to going along with what I feel I’m naturally going along (i.e. not having them). I don’t want to regret not having seriously considered it, or to realise I was lying to myself about not wanting, that doesn’t sound healthy. So I’ve been doing that more lately.
This is a good thoughtful response as well! I think the calculus is actually significantly different for men vs women, where the Elon Musk option is unlikely for men, but feels kind of unimaginable for women. Obviously not every single parent relationship in the world is gendered this way, but honestly I’d guess like 98% are, maybe more. And on inside view, you know I’d totally end up the mother figure in any relationship. On the other hand, I’d be fine living in a group house with someone who had a kid—indicating to me that it’s not participating in raising kids that I don’t want, but being responsible for raising kids. (Also the pregnancy thing, as I mentioned. Shudder.)
So yeah, if I were a man in a non-precipice world I think I could easily want kids. But that’s not the situation, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, agree on the men/women differences.
Being in a house with kids also sounds like something that would get me a bunch of things I want. I guess people in close knit communities used to have more availability for this—you could go help out at the nearby school, for example. My Dad lives in a pretty healthy community in The Netherlands, and for many years ran a weekly Chess club for the kids there, which had like 30-40 kids come every week. He works in the Chess industry and would help the strongest kids go to tournaments and more.
I notice there are several alternatives here that sound like things I’d find meaningful that don’t involve having kids myself. I’ll think more on them...