<h2>I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey</h2> 
No it's not rocky horror but it's a bit of a different topic for today and I had to grab your attention! I'm a professional in my 30s. Both my wife and I have chosen not only to avoid having children but actively reject the blacklisting that seems to go with such a decision. Many conversations on this topic seem to attempt to imprint on us the insulting notion that _"we just don't get it yet"_ or _"one day you'll change your mind"_ (and by inference, see the world the way the "normal" clucky parent does). Furthermore if we choose not to have kids then we must be fundamentally selfish people (we'll get to that later). I feel it's like they want someone to share their pain with.

![parenting.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXkGoAtfzZ25EAbKM3nkRojttLhzw5bU7CzzkrdqmeTsD/parenting.jpg)
_parenting.com_

Don't get me wrong here. There are many great people who suit parenthood very well. I also concede that for such people, the rewards of parenting done right are miraculous, deep and enriching. In the same way that pole vaulting isn't a pursuit suited to everyone however, neither is the decision to have children. Unlike pole vaulting however, there's often an expectation that a relationship will ultimately be child bearing and such pressures can result in couples going down a path that they may not have chosen in isolation. It's this pernicious situation, along with some of the disingenuous motivations that some parents defend their decision with that I'd like to discuss.  

I've worked with many parents. While I'm in at the office before 7am, chirpy and ready to be productive, many parents stammer in 2 or 3 hours later, hair in a mess, stubble on the face, droopy eyes, un-ironed clothing & with a greasy (and likely cold) cheese breakfast last minute thing and a take away coffee. Sitting down with a sigh, they are totally defeated before starting the day.

Now I get that things of  (I'll put the word "perceived" in here) vale require an investment of effort... _however_ that doesn't mean that everything that has cost effort will wind up being of value. It's one of those asymmetrical realities in life.  Things of value necessarily require effort but things that cost effort don't automatically result in something of value. Still with me? Good... keep that in mind as I disect one of the most common **assumptions** (and I'll go further and say self motivated arguments) for deciding to be a parent.

Let's take my friend for example. Call him Steve. Now Steve has followed the traditional path in life... get married, get a mortgage, have kids, work the remained of your productive decades servicing the obligations taken on in the above points. Now in conversations with Steve over the years I've found his motivations for children to be quite self serving. I've not once heard him mention anything about a desire to experience the joy of imparting knowledge into a mind that is a blank canvas or an interest in pursuing family traditions that span beyond the lifetime of any one generation (my grandmother incidentally was big on upholding family tradition but that I think was a function of the circumstances of her upbringing during the second world war and beyond the scope of this post). 

Back to Steve, his motivations have always revolved around producing children who will care for him (note the use of the singular, he doesn't include his wife in this safety net he's building for some reason) in old age. He even goes to the extent of getting into martial arguments over the fact that he wants as many kids as possible, _simply to maximise the chance that one of them will be a good egg and look after old Steve when he's in a wheel chair_.

Already I hope you can see my argument forming. His goal is to burden his kids with an obligation to care for him. That's why the kids exist! He's an educated white collar worker so I don't attribute this mindset to simple thinking. I think it's societal.

How often too do such people toil for nothing. I have no relationship with my parents and all of us to some extent have things about their childhood they didn't like or resented. All the effort of parenting, if it's motivated by the idea of meaning something to someone later in life when you need to burden someone with daily needs, is a big gamble.

Now I adore Stefan Molyneux's work at Free Domain Radio and I agree with him on many things but the push to procreate and the idea that this is the only path  (or one of the only paths) to real fulfillment I reject. 

Stefan raised this most recently in this video but it's a recurring theme of his.
https://youtu.be/GGNxxMCbsvo

One of his arguments is the idea that _"you like being alive don't you, well why not share that with another life? Why deny someone else the life you enjoy?"_

That's a question based on flawed assumptions. I'm alive through no choice of my own. Now that I am alive I am at the whim of a built in sense of self preservation that's inherent in all life. It's why the prey runs from a predator, it's why a horse bolts at a scary noise. Now that I'm living I don't _want_ to die but that's distinct from wanting to impose life on self or on another. Choosing to be born, in other words (a choice that only our parents can make for us) is different to choosing to remain living. I think this is an important distinction. 

Stefan even said himself in the context of taxation, rape and other topics that participation does not imply consent. I feel that way about life. To me, that negates his argument. 

Stefan also claims arguments that align with Steve's above. When you are old, you have no skills that can be provided to the free market, you have no relevance, you have no freedom of movement and so you have no value. He argues that having children produces a situation where you will have value later in life. Another big assumption. I know I wont be playing any role in my parents' lives for as long as that may still be. That gamble didn't play out for them due to  circumstances I wont elaborate on here. Finding meaning in age is like finding meaning in life. You can try but at the end of the day it's inevitable and it doesn't have to mean anything. Not every question is sensible and not every question has an answer. 

<h2>Growing old is just horrible. Face it. That's life. Kids wont necessarily fix that for you. </h2>

Another consideration is resources. On this point, for balance, I totally agree with Stefan. He's a big supporter of stay-at-home parenting. In this day of needing a double income just to survive, daycare is all too common. Now this is a big topic in itself but my point is that daycare is a big compromise on the quality of a child's upbringing and people shouldn't feel shy of opting out of parenthood if they are not dispassionately up to providing an upbringing that meets the minimum standard that the potential parents are happy with. Case in point, I coincidentally stopped as chance would have it near a day care center on my way home from work today. There were swarms of kids killing time until their ride home arrived presumably around 6pm or so. The vastly outnumbered caretakers were disengaged and disinterested. Of course they would be! They don't have any skin in the game. How many of these kids have parents who decided to become parents simply because they convinced themselves that "they'd make it work" or because the pressure to have kids from their social ecosystem outweighed a genuine evaluation of the pros and cons. My sister in law fell into the trap of having kids out of obligation despite being rather vocal about never wanting parenthood and even during the pregnancy there were a few times that she said she had never wanted this. Ultimately that ended in a divorce, split custody and a rotten start to the two children that that brief marriage produced. See what I mean?

Here's the daycare center by they way. They're a bit hard to see but the kids are everywhere 
![2017-09-27 18.15.25.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPQ81K2QdCUi7XXkq7ufDQx9pu8h6CTiLh4YUsMtxEASx/2017-09-27%2018.15.25.jpg)

So you can see that some if not many motivations for having kids are disingenuous. I've only scratched the surface. They're a gamble at best. Like any gamble however they come at a real cost. It's realistic to expect to lose 2 decades putting out brush fires that result from parenthood. When the nesters leave home you raise your head up and look around. When the dust settles and the sound fades you find a much older and greyer you staring back at you in the mirror. It's a large chunk of life that's on the price tag when you want to take the plunge into parenthood. The financial implications are life altering too.

When raising kids, self development takes a back seat. My father in law once (ignorantly in my opinion) claimed that you still keep learning as a parent. Yes. I agree. You keep learning about things of little substance. How to clean a variety of stains and which way around a nappy or diaper goes. There's hence another lost  decade or so in terms of self betterment.

My wife and I pursue deep thoughts and discuss philosophical topics as we have the kid free luxury to do so. Our understanding of the human condition coupled with our psychiatric studies see us arguably more enlightened than most parents I'd wager and I don't say that out of spite, it's just a result of having the time to put into a passion. This of course may not be the case for every parent but from the many I've known, it's a reasonable position to take. Self betterment is a noble pursuit in my eyes and one I enjoy having the freedom to explore. As we travel, move around the work force and spend time with different social groups and classes we understand a world that's just not available to the parent who's just rushing to get to daycare in time. My life is much much richer for opting to avoid children and despite having the resources to take on fatherhood, I'm happy that I've chosen more fruitful alternatives - at least in my eyes.

I hope to trigger thought in those who feel social pressure and expectation. You don't have to follow that path. Think of the real costs and consider that becoming a parent (although providing you with experiences of value and a certain skill set) radically stunts the ability to reach your own true potential. Let me balance that by addressing those parents who genuinely do passionately yearn for the path they've chose. My congratulations go to you. I wish you years of value and happiness. I'm all for pursuing genuine interests. I'm not a fan of going down a path however that is the result of pressure from others.

A controversial topic I'm sure. I appreciate your interest!