A slightly left turn topic: How do you feel/think about people who are voluntarily child free?
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2024
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Ouch. Potential for a quite heated discussion.
Personally I would say that everyone is free to make their own choices. Better to not have children if you know you would regret it, than to have them and then feel unhappy for twenty years because of that.
Agree with your opinion. More than just them being unhappy, also for the child to have a poor childhood because the parent never wanted to take care of another human
Please don't post this as a topic next Thursday.
Yeah, I've gathered that the topic is contentious, but I don't understand why.
Just as child free persons have their reasons, most parents probably have theirs, be it conscious, normative, or pressured. And at least to me, the discussion is about the choice and reasons, rather than any judgement.
I was hoping not to stir the pot, but to get a better understanding on why there's such heated feelings.
As a child free person myself I don't think you want to invite that here. Not to say it'd be uncivil but some of our reasons for not having children will be inherently offensive to people here and I don't think it'd be good for the general vibe. Just an example, I'm not certain I'm going to live the rest of my life free of major strife (the global rise of fascism, climate change disasters, globe trotting plagues, etc) and I think it's morally irresponsible to bring a child into the world. Are those conversations that you want to have here or do you want to talk about the difficulties of raising kids, the surprising joys, and the unexpected milestones?
I get that the topic evokes a lot of emotions, but I don't understand why the reasons are offensive, are we not all making the beat decisions we can with what information we have?
For some there might be reasons and considerations more important than granting their offspring a life without strife (and thus make different moral judgements). I'm not trying to judge one choice over the other, I'm curious as to why the topic gets so personal and passionate even with people who otherwise are level-headed and well reasoned.
That's my point about civility. I think you can have the conversations, but almost every parent I know says that their children are their greatest achievement and that they are the best part of their life. You're inviting people in who fundamentally disagree with that and a lot of people take it pretty personally when you call the most important thing in their life a moral failure. I just don't imagine /c/parenting users come here to be lambasted and I doubt it's good for growing the community as well