cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/27368980
I am curious if the majority of leftist people don’t actually want children haha. There doesn’t seem to be any studies about it, but my convos with leftists is that most don’t seem to want to have children either for the uncertainty of the future or because they are too expensive or because it wouldn’t give them too much time to organize or whatever other reason that I forgot about.
I personally lean on not having children because I have been laid off of several jobs and having someone financially dependent to me scares the shit out of me and would put my stress levels through the roof.
I’ve known since I was like 13 that I would never be stable enough in life to feel good about having children. Not even because I knew I would be too tired from working so much to devote myself to a child. Also, just the financial strain of another human would never ever be feasible.
Also the fact that children have no rights and can just be permanently fucked up by their parents feels like choosing to rip a person away from Africa at tge height of slavery. Just my personal opinion.
I have 2 kids and I want them, but their mother kidnapped them and took them to another country, leading to tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and mont of mental and emotional anguish. I might be able to see them again, hopefully.
I am very much a leftist (anarchist, to be specific). I have 2 kids and I absolutely LOVE being a dad. It’s the single most fulfilling and enjoyable thing I’ve done in my entire life.
If you don’t want kids, that’s perfectly fine. Kids need a loving an nurturing home, and if someone is unwilling to provide that, they shouldn’t have kids just to have them. But I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with having kids if you want them.
From an ideologically leftist perspective (which absolutely should NOT be the determining factor in having kids), remember how much focus the fascists put on family and kids. They are having plenty of kids who will be raised with their fascist ideology. Do you really want the generation who will be running the world when we’re old to be entirely raised by fascists?
I didn’t have kids because of my politics, but I’m happy to know that at least 2 future adults will be raised by me with my values.
most don’t seem to want to have children either for the uncertainty of the future or because they are too expensive or because it wouldn’t give them too much time to organize or whatever
I’d just say that every single one of these factors has been in play for virtually all of history and yet people still had kids and were able to do great things. John Brown had like 20 kids, but that didn’t stop him from fighting slavery. Nestor Makhno had a daughter. Our world is nowhere near as dire as the one Makhno lived in, and he built an entire anarchist society. What do you think the birth rate in places like Rojava is?
These aren’t very good reasons to not have kids, they’re just justifications people pull out when they feel like saying “I just don’t want kids” isn’t good enough. It is. if you don’t want kids, that’s fine. Don’t try to make up some reason why others who do shouldn’t.
I don’t have kids because I’ve never especially liked them, and I think it’s morally wrong to have kids if you don’t like or want them.
morally wrong?
Not OP, but absolutely.
You are bringing a human life into existence a decision they have no say in.
So NO children should be born ever since you can’t ask for consent?
Read it again maybe?
That’s not what I would infer from my statement and in conjunction with OPs. Neither of us want or are interested in children. I wasn’t talking about all people, I’m talking about myself, OP, and maybe anyone who doesn’t want children.
I think it would be morally wrong to bring a life into the world if I wasn’t prepared to put their needs and wants above my own and care for them to the best of my ability, and I would not be capable of doing so if I didn’t want them in the first place.
I am opposed to human reproduction.
I live in a country that according to a study is the nr 1 in outsourcing their children.
Nanny, babysits, daycare, etc… Parents have less and less time to raise them in our performance-work-oriented societies.
Even if they could and have the time, it is also known they only have a minor part of shaping them.
Outside factors combined, school, their friends and worse of all social media have a bigger impact.
And I see those ‘parents’ all the time, proud of how they’re raising a child while both having successful carreers.
These people wake their kids and see them again when they put them to bed.
On top of that I glanced over an article recently (since I have no kids) about those children that get little attention from their parents.
A lot of mental problems later and even a substantial rise in percentage of psychopats.Are you from Japan?
This is the first country that comes to me head
People that don’t want children usually think of the potential wellbeing of a future human. People that do want children, usually do so for selfish reasons. It makes sense people who think of environment or other people are more lefties.
I agree, but in a way everything we do is for selfish reasons.
An avg of 2.1 children can be had per couple and it will not grow the population.
I say that is OK.Population growth is not my main concern. If I have to live in a filthy city, work full-time and barely have money to support myself, I don’t see why I should consider having a child.
This completely contradicts your earlier point:
People that don’t want children usually think of the potential wellbeing of a future human. People that do want children, usually do so for selfish reasons.
Are you choosing to not have kids (which is a perfectly fine and morally defensible decision to make) because you’re thinking of the potential wellbeing of a future human, or for the selfish reason that it would make your socioeconomic situation more difficult?
Again, simply saying “I just don’t want to have kids” is perfectly fine. But you tried to moralize it by saying people who do have kids are selfish and those who don’t are altruistic. Yet the reason you gave for not having kids was selfish.
or for the selfish reason that it would make your socioeconomic situation more difficult?
No. My kid will grow up in a bad place and I won’t have time to spend with it. I don’t have a pet for the same reasons.
Want them, can’t afford them. Not in terms of money, living space (which money would solve), or time (which is required to make money). I already feel like I’m drowning on my own, I don’t want to also fail my children.
Plus the world is a shitty place.
I’m a communist and don’t want children, I guess for related reasons insofar as I don’t think there’s any such thing as a “good parent” and that raising children in an atomised nuclear family structure will inevitably harm them. I know people will continue to have kids regardless, but I don’t feel comfortable being responsible for a child’s trauma. I also don’t think I’d be interested in having children even if we only consider selfish reasons; it sounds like a lot of stress and financial drain.
Just throwing this out there, the fascists and reactionaries have 0 qualms with having a bunch of kids. Do you want the generation of people who will be running the world when we’re old to be entirely raised by fascists and reactionaries? Where will future leftists come from if not from present leftists?
That is not how the world works. I am also not a leftist; I am a communist.
That is, in fact, how the world works. And communists are leftists…
Communism is not concerned with “left” and “right”, bourgeois ideological categories. Communism is the political programme of the revolutionary proletariat, or the real movement to abolish the current state of things, etc. I have no more in common with the liberal politicians who call themselves “left-wing” than I do with a fascist, so it makes no sense to place communism along a linear scale like left/right where it is suggested that communism holds more in common with a political position the further “left” it is. And whether or not communists hold a certain view has no relation to how “left-wing” it is; for instance, in the US, they consider being anti-gun to be a “left” position, but communists are pro-gun.
Communism arises out of an especially politically conscious stratum of the proletariat, and is generated more broadly by capitalism itself, which creates the conditions for its own demise. If communism could only come from already existing communists then there wouldn’t be any communists anymore given all the massacres of communists throughout history.
Communists would not agree with you about politics working like a marketplace of ideas where each idea proponent has to convince enough people of their idea to get a foothold. We see politics as class conflict and communists coming from the militant working class. Capitalism creates the material conditions for a communist movement to arise, and communism will continue to spring up again time after time of suppressing, mass incarcerating, massacring, etc communists.
Finally, it is obviously a very reactionary take that anyone should be obliged to have children. There’s a reason why it’s mostly ethnonationalists who are big on that stuff… Doubly so if you mean actually creating children and not adopting existing children. It is incredibly misogynistic to expect women to give up our bodies for your fantasy of popping out “leftist” babies. Pregnancy permanently changes a person’s body, is often disabling, and humans have one of the highest childbirth mortality rates in the animal kingdom not accounting for modern medicine. Not to mention that even if your body popped back to normal after giving birth, it’s still fucked up to expect anyone to dedicate 9 months of their life to being essentially disabled and then go through agonising pain at the end of that 9 month period. Even if you only mean adopting children, those children have to come from somewhere, and implicit in that expectation would be the expectation for, primarily women, to have to sacrifice their health to produce children.
Bringing more people into this world where they will suffer is certainly unethical, but at the same time I do understand the argument that parental beliefs have one of the highest impacts of determining child beliefs, so leftists having children could increase the influence of leftism in the world. Right now, I’m not mature enough to be a good parent, but if I ever am, I might adopt.
I don’t have a solid yes/no stance personally but at my age I don’t think it’s going to happen. My conditions for yes are having a reliable partner who wants children. So far I’ve struggled to find any sort of partner, let alone a reliable one who wants children.
How old are you if you don’t mind me asking?
37
I chose to not have children mainly for the environment. My partner just doesn’t like the idea of having children. However, I know a lot of leftist people that have/want children.
I have adult children. They will probably not have children.
Why do you think so?
They’re happy with each other and the time they spend together. They’ve said they dont feel the need to procreate and they currently feel like the world is not a place to bring a kid.
What are your thoughts on that?
Her parents hound them about having kids. We told them that the decision is too big for anyone else to push you into it. If they choose to, we will love them and help - but we’re not quitting our lives to play Grandma/Grandpa daycare constantly. If they choose not to, then we probably won’t have grandkids and that will be ok too. I think our other son might like to have kids but he’s nearing mid-30s and isnt seeing anyone. He says he’d prefer to be an uncle than a dad, but if he had the right partner i think that could change.
I am 22 and at the moment I don’t mind having 1 in a fewer years, but definitely not gonna be in the next 4 years, since I feel the world gonna change a lot.
35 year old here. The world is not going to change that much.
I want children. I know the world is shit right now but we need more of the better people to fix it.
If the left stop breeding, but the right do, then they’ll just overtake us.
Replacement theory based on politcal views? That’s a hot take.
No, I just want children in general. But I don’t get why people say they don’t want children because the world is shit. Have kids and teach them to be better. The world can be improved.
