instantbenz:
The 'economy' issue brought up by so many people is moot. Money accrued will be greater for the potential parent. At some point that money gets used or absorbed by the economy regardless. This isn't rocket science here.

If you don't have kids, you have fewer expenses. You can then spend money on what you want instead of on diapers and baby formula so check this out:

$ for shit I want into economy=$ for shit I'd spend on baby into economy

so, transitively, using a condom is like buying a ticket to a future of you pumping money into the economy as knocking someone up is a ticket to a future of you pumping money into the economy

ta-da

It's not about spending money. It's about ensuring a continuous input of the labour force.

Countries like Japan and Germany are already showing dependency ratios at dangerously high levels.

instantbenz:

Grey Day for Elcia:

Regnes:
I only skimmed your post, but it's selfish because you are jeopardizing the economy and stability of your country by refusing to have children.

Are you buying only products made in your country? Are you helping your country's exports? Are you sitting on money (savings) that a bank is using to buy stock in foreign companies instead of pumping it back into the economy? Are you protesting when once national brands sell themselves off to overseas buyers? Campaigning the local, state and federal governments on these issues? Etc., etc., you get the picture.

Oh so true, just like no foreign governments ever bribe our politicians to vote in favor of policy to benefit said foreign national companies.

Margaret Thatcher and the Saudis? The money comes back to us.

Again, the 'economy' issue proves nothing. It is not selfish to not procreate.

Double negatives always give me that split second of headache, lol.

Oh the Escapist, wherein a bunch of mid-20's to early teens try to rationalize children or their hatred of them without actually understanding them.

It's not selfish to choose childlessness, but, most of the time, you don't get a choice hahaha. Even with contraception, more than half of the parents I've ever talked to said they had children DESPITE planning/trying against having them. A lot of people hate kids, right up until the moment they have one of their own.

I never really understood either OP.

The only way I could see it as being selfish is if your parents really want grandchildren, and you don't want children.

Selfish is an awfully negative term for making your own choice regarding how you want to spend the rest of your life.

irishda:
Oh the Escapist, wherein a bunch of mid-20's to early teens try to rationalize children or their hatred of them without actually understanding them.

It's not selfish to choose childlessness, but, most of the time, you don't get a choice hahaha. Even with contraception, more than half of the parents I've ever talked to said they had children DESPITE planning/trying against having them. A lot of people hate kids, right up until the moment they have one of their own.

Nah, I love kids. I'm in the minority when it comes to that on this site lol.

But yeah, you're right. I've always found that the whole idea of "planned parenthood", or planning to have children as fundamentally flawed. You're fighting millions of years of optimized biological instinct to reproduce, good luck with that.

I'm not having kids unless I end up with a partner who I know I will never leave that is really inclined towards having them. Because at the moment, no. NO. NO NO NO NO.

It's not selfish, it's just how some people, myself included, choose to live.

I actually don't have kids because I can't think of any non selfish reasons to have them.

I need someone to look after me in my old age, I need to pass on my genetic stock, I need to pass on my legacy...etc etc.

Those just seems like really selfish reasons to bring a new life into the world.

On the flip side I openly agree that the reasons I don't want to have kids are totally selfish.

There are dozens, but they all pretty much boil down to the fact that I don't want to change my behavior to accommodate the needs of an impressionable youngster.

Also, I'd be a terrible father.

Vault101:
-

I dont think some should breed, so I disagree.

i think it's not selfish to not want kids. I'm never having kids I'd rather be addicted to carck.

Morskie:

zehydra:
You're fighting millions of years of optimized biological instinct to reproduce, good luck with that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasectomy

Mine's worked for six years now.

Lol, well yeah, surgery's something different (I wouldn't call vasectomy "planned parenthood", other than planning NOT to have children. I'm talking about rational planning vs sexual instinct.

Valanthe:
Is it selfish for me to not want to have kids? Perhaps it is, but if I based my life around what others wished for in me I'd be a Pot smoking alcoholic working a dead-end job that paid for a car I didn't want that would drive me to the job I didn't want to go to to support a wife* I couldn't stand who was raising kids I never wanted.

-snip-

This. This so much, I have a hard time describing it. Plus the rest of your post. We're far too similar on this subject.

But honestly, I'm not going to contribute more to what I see as a failing society, only to bring about my own suffering. I'm going to enjoy every moment I have living the life *I* want to live. No one else will ever sway me otherwise; unless my girlfriend decides she wants to have kids with me sometime down the line (which both of us are currently strongly against), they are entirely out of the question. Even then, I refuse to reproduce until I'm financially secure, which is more of a boon to society than those welfare-gorging leeches I see everywhere.

Surely a welfare family's collection of 3+ scum-sucking offspring is more than enough to account for me.

Mortai Gravesend:
I also wonder at someone who rails against multiculturalism quoting something about a lack of contact between groups.

Wait. You actually believe that different ethnic groups will just mix in fine after their numbers started growing?

One thing is multiculturalism. Another thing is refusing to believe it turned into a problem.

How are you going to have contact between different groups when you get to 25% X, 25% Y and 50% Z? Ethnic groups will just distance themselves.

A 2008 study identified differences among some Latino nationalities, and between certain Latino ethnic groups and African Americans. It found that non-whites may leave neighborhoods as the proportion of other groups increases.

Happens with pretty much every ethnic group except African Americans, according to the study.

I can only see one problem with not having children: high taxes in next generation and smaller working population in the future. On a personal level, it depends only on your own+your partners wishes/education/experience/etc.

At the same time, having children can also be very VERY selfish. Women can use it to pull out money of rich men, use children as blackmail. Some will not have an abortion because of "religious" reasons and choose to have a deformed child with underdeveloped brain (these types of people disgust me the most). Even couples sometimes see children as an investment rather then a sacrifice(as is often the case in very large families). I applaud single mothers if they really chose to rear children after their father died for example - that's one of few cases that having children really is selfless.

Mortai Gravesend:
Of course what you will never address is why this might be happening. Personally I'd think people like you would contribute to that lack of contact between groups by fleeing.

I sure am. So far contact between black people and gypsies usually ends up in gunshots. The moment I start hearing them in my location I am moving.

Why is this happening? I think it's an example of the cage with 4 monkeys. It's and unwritten rule that was never explained to anyone, but still rather obey that "rule" than getting shanked or shot.

Want to address the problem? Perhaps not pretending that multiculturalism is the solution would help. Perhaps deterring people from crime will work. If people don't gang up, they are not ganging up with people from the same group and start racial attrition.

But so far the only thing I have seen was the sense of impunity and the protection of criminals.

And the double standards. If those Somali women were white they wouldn't get off because of their muslim culture.

Over 7 billion people on the planet, to me the only selfish people here, are the ones that insist on having lots of the little parasites to then go out and destroy the planet.

If you haven't guessed yet, I don't want/like children. However, I have nothing against people who have the resources to raise them, having one or two. What really gets to me though is all these people, who tend to be less well educated/in greater poverty, continually churning out more of them.

Preferably, I wouldn't like to have kids because if any of them ended up like me mentally then it wouldn't be fair on them but if me wench wanted to have one then I would.

I've never heard this attitude before and I don't get it either. Surely bringing another human into an already over populated planet is selfish?

I think having a kid is something that not everyone should have to or is cut out to do. It takes special people to raise a child well. Your selfish if you have a child when you can barely look after yourself for instance.

I don't get this. The main arguments that not having children is selfish are:
1)To help society.
Altruism is good, but frankly those who think society needs more children is misguided. I'm sorry, but there's already a rather high overpopulation and except in a situation of something close to human extinction it's not selfish to not have children. Other people have made better arguments, but in a nutshell there are other ways of helping society.

One person brought up the aging of the population in japan, which is valid, but the main problem is not that there's not enough people, but too many aging people and inadequate infrastructure for this problem. I don't have an answer to that problem, it's not my field but a population spike will be ineffective for the next 18 (or more) years, and it will just mean that we will have to get a bigger population to take care of more and more aging people over the years.

Someone said that we should adopt children, and that's good, but that got off the point of the main question

2) "Cultural Purity"
I'm going to be controversial, but it has to be said. This is racist and those who advocate are racist. I've only been on the escapist for a small while and I'm disturbed by the extremely racist, sexist and just plain dogmatic attitude that some people have. Godwin's law is overused, but in this case it's hopefully correct. Cultural Purity is a Nazi belief. It's the one thing that they can be properly associated to without protest

In the last post by ElPatron, he said " So far contact between black people and gypsies usually ends up in gunshots. The moment I start hearing them in my location I am moving.

Want to address the problem? Perhaps not pretending that multiculturalism is the solution would help. Perhaps deterring people from crime will work. If people don't gang up, they are not ganging up with people from the same group and start racial attrition.

But so far the only thing I have seen was the sense of impunity and the protection of criminals."

I hope he's trolling, since it's too far gone for kidding, because damn free speech this is racist. He's comparing those of another ethnicity to criminals, advocates a xenophobic policy and a genuinely creepy suggestion that something "has to be done" about multiculturalism.

I dont' care if he's black, hispanic, white or asian. What he's advocating is disgraceful.

Cheery Lunatic:
It's only selfish if you're getting serious with someone you know plans on having kids later on life and you don't let him or her know that you don't want kids.

Otherwise, whatever floats your boat.

This is the way I figure it.

I hope to one day have a child or two, if I got into a deep relationship with someone and they didn't tell me that they didn't want kids one day, and then pretty much choose to be selfish and tell me to shove my own hopes....well I would be a little miffed.

>.>
wow ...

14 pages and kinda looks like its gotten off topic (no surprise really)

anyway, no, having kids or not, is not by it self selfish.

i won't be having kids.
don't really want any, can't get my own crap in a stack, yeah, lets add the well fair of another life to it and i doubt my own ability, even with said 'crap in a stack' to raise em right

sides, only girl i met i've seirusly wanted to marry broke my heart >.> like 2 years ago and I'm to spineless to try and find another girlfriend

You know what strikes me as being pretty selfish? Bringing kids into this world, not because you want them, but so you won't feel guilty about not doing it.

The human race has been around for a long time now, and until we stop having sex for fun and companionship I don't think we have to start going out of our way to have kids we raise out of obligation. If you want kids, then great! Have 'em, treat 'em right, wait until you have the resources to support them because they will get themselves in a lot of trouble you'll have to buy them out of.

If you don't want kids, don't worry about it. Your mind may change at some point, and if it does, that's wonderful. We're over 6 billion strong at this point, though, so we can afford our population to dip a bit if I'm wrong.

I deem me not having children a public service...

The ones who have kids are the selfish ones withnall the overpopulation problems etc, also never take your children to posh restaurants and learn your not special for having children parents!

Frankly I can't believe this has like 300 replies. I could have been first to say something, but I realised everyone would say the same thing- that's stupid, it's not selfish. But simce it's 300 replies I'm guessing there is some sort of debate? Who in the hell thinks not having kids is selfish'. That's absurd.

Cheery Lunatic:
It's only selfish if you're getting serious with someone you know plans on having kids later on life and you don't let him or her know that you don't want kids.

Otherwise, whatever floats your boat.

yeah this basically, having a child is pretty serious business, it isn't something small like you lie when your say "oh i love your mothers cooking!" or something like that.

but yeah float of the boat is true.

me personally? yeah i want kids, and i really don't think i could be with someone who doesn't want at least one of their own. and i've been this way as long as i can remember, so i don't see why that would change anytime soon, personally i think i could be a great father and if being the oldest of 4 has anything close to it, it's a great feeling when you know someone looks up to you and you helped shape them into a great human being.

still, after I have one or two of my own, i will probably adopt 1 or 2, maybe 3 depending on circumstance and such. too many kids grow up in life with no one to properly guide them and i'd prefer to know i can make a difference for a child or two.

Svenparty:
The ones who have kids are the selfish ones withnall the overpopulation problems etc, also never take your children to posh restaurants and learn your not special for having children parents!

the ones who are "selfish" are the ones who have the mistake of having children, then dump them off in the system or leave em as a dumpster baby. that's what is selfish above that. there are plenty of safe ways to have sex than using one thin ass rubber each time, not to mention gorging your gravy machine in spermicide.

Diddy_Mao:
I actually don't have kids because I can't think of any non selfish reasons to have them.

I need someone to look after me in my old age, I need to pass on my genetic stock, I need to pass on my legacy...etc etc.

Those just seems like really selfish reasons to bring a new life into the world.

On the flip side I openly agree that the reasons I don't want to have kids are totally selfish.

There are dozens, but they all pretty much boil down to the fact that I don't want to change my behavior to accommodate the needs of an impressionable youngster.

Also, I'd be a terrible father.

i see absolutely nothing wrong with this, however just curious, if you did make the mistake of having a child un-intentially, would you be "man" enough to try and be a decent father? that is relative of course as to how you think "being a good father" is, but just curious.