How common is it for people to never find an other half or have kids?

markodaly

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I think you may have misread the point I was making in relation to your point about how having a child makes you realise you’re part of something bigger than yourself and that in the age of the self, having children is one of the last vestiges of true sacrifice. I’m not putting words in your mouth, I’m making the point that for me there was none of that nonsense. That’s not because I live in the age of the self where having a child is one of the last vestiges of true sacrifice.

It’s because I live in a world where having a child is not the exceptional and life altering experience you appear to want to make it out to be as though you actually have made some great sacrifice for humanity and you deserve credit for it.

That's wonderful navel gazing by yourself in fairness. I highlighted the bit in bold in particular because multiple surveys and studies around the world indicate how people rank their kids as their own biggest achievement in life, behind things like owning a home, giving up smoking, losing weight, graduating and so on.

Very kind of us to tell everyone that they are wrong and you have unlocked the key to happiness for us all. Scoff, scorn and roll your eyes at the mere plebs among us who have such limited expectations on life all you want, it merely confirms to me what type of person you are.

I’m all for having a polite conversation about the topic, but what you appear to be doing is making shìt up about other people and pretending your opinion should be regarded as authoritative source on the topic because what, you can draw correlations from statistical data to suit your particular point of view? There’s nothing scientific in your methodology whatsoever. You can’t just pull figures from wherever you like and expect that other people should regard them the same way you do.

The studies are the studies. If you can find me recent studies that state that childless people have greater life expectancy than those with children, or that people rank having kids as one the worst life choices or mistakes they have done, then come back to me. Otherwise, take them on board and move on.

I find it quite amusing that you attack me on being an 'authoritative source' and disparage the fact that the science backs up my point of view, while you just offer an opinion backed up by well nothing. You are an authoritative source on nothing, just another person arguing on AH.

I don’t care as I said whether other people do or don’t have children or what they have chosen to do with their lives. I’m not the person who’s pretending though that either reproducing or raising children should be regarded in the same ball park as scientists who have spent decades studying human reproduction for example and have actually contributed to the body of human knowledge. There is no specific prerequisite knowledge or experience required for reproduction or raising children. That’s why I suggested that it’s literally something any idiot can do.

You keep saying whatever floats ones boat, but can you understand why someone would be a bit skeptical of your claims of indifference to other people’s life choices which don’t align with yours, when you appear to be going out of your way to devalue their achievements, and place a higher value on your own ‘achievement’ of having reproduced and raised a child? You’re setting the bar for what is considered an achievement so low that if anyone were to take it seriously, we’d be handing out participation medals to everyone for their contribution to society.

Yes, because most couples who remain childless by choice are involved in cutting edge science or some other noble pursuit, in your estimation.

So, what achievements would these be in general? Don't kid me in telling me most people out there are achieving all these great things, when they don't. We are not talking about the 0.001% of extraordinary people here, we are talking about the remainder, people married or otherwise, couples childless or with children live ordinary mundane lives by and large.

Science in and of itself doesn’t back up anything. What you have there are correlations drawn from statistics, something which again, and I’m reluctant to repeat myself, but it’s something any idiot can do - literally spotting patterns in data. Some people are better at it than others, but most people are certainly capable of it. Again it’s no special achievement, and it’s certainly not science. It’s pattern recognition. You were doing it before you even realised you could. I don’t even know what you mean by “a common denominator is that they are single and to an extent by default don’t have kids”. You’re literally seeing only what you want to see, which is why you’ve identified the common denominator(s) among the people you know who are utterly miserable as being single with no children.

Pfft. I fairness you are getting rather hysterical with the constant refusal to look at the data and science behind my point. It was only a minor point in my overarching view on the topic, but still, it's rather telling.

To be fair to you, I should state that I’m aware of plenty of the studies you refer to, but unfortunately much of what passes review for publication in the social sciences these days is motivated by political bias as opposed to any scientific methodology being employed in collecting and collating data, much less reviewing said data. In short - I’d take much of those studies with the same regard I’d give to reading fifty shades of grey and thinking there was any scientific merit in it.

Are you a creationist by any chance? Do you refuse to accept that the earth is more than 10,000 years old? What about climate change? I guess the climate just changes all the time by its own so rising temperatures are nothing to worry about and will correct on their own

Do you outright reject all studies in the same fashion or just ones that go against your own personal viewpoint and beliefs?

Here you are in a post referencing a study in relation to breastfeeding.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=110566321&postcount=492

Here you are referencing a Pew study in relation to homosexuality and religion.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=110428152&postcount=254

Here you are referencing a study about vaping.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109561718&postcount=124

Here you are referencing a study about suicide and religion.
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=109751819&postcount=114

I could go on and on but you get my drift. If I produce a study that backs up the points I make, you dismiss its merit as akin to reading 50 shades of grey, then why are you referencing studies in order to back up your own points in various other threads?

Perhaps because you are a big massive hypocrite?

A study from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health i.e. NOT a social science discipline found the following.

RESULTS:
Men and women having at least one child experienced lower death risks than childless men and women. At 60 years of age, the difference in life expectancy was 2 years for men and 1.5 years for women. The absolute differences in death risks increased with parents' age and were somewhat larger for men than for women. The association persisted when the potential confounding effect of having a partner was taken into account. The gender of the child did not matter for the association between parenthood and mortality.

CONCLUSIONS:
Having children is associated with increased longevity, particularly in an absolute sense in old age. That the association increased with parents' age and was somewhat stronger for the non-married may suggest that social support is a possible explanation.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28292784#

I guess they are just 'idiots spotting data in patterns'?

I think I’m being very fair in pointing out the fact that many people don’t achieve elite level status in their chosen field, which is what makes it an achievement for the small number of people who do! Because almost every human being on the planet has at least the capacity and the capability to reproduce and raise children, that’s why I suggested you were elevating something ordinary to rubber medal levels of what should be considered an achievement. It’s not me is setting the bar for “is this all there is to life?” so low at all, but rather yourself is setting the bar so low that the ordinary should be regarded as something extraordinary or a feat of great sacrifice, or “true sacrifice” as you put it.

Remember before when I said, don't put words into my mouth. Perhaps you should actually take it on board before straw-manning my position again.

To be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t choose to have children so they would become taxpayers and pay for our public services. I’d be royally screwed if I thought like that because I’m aware that someone else is raising future generations of politicians to ensure that future generations are just as royally screwed as many people are today. No, I chose to have children for purely selfish reasons, and for one reason only - because I always wanted to have a big family with plenty of children. I was prepared to settle for six. My wife at the time had other ideas by the time we’d had our first child :pac:

Didn't you admit that one of the first thoughts you had, when you had your child, was that you just contributed to climate change? I think that level of thinking says more about you than anything else tbh.
Anyway, apart from again straw-manning my position, as per to the why you had kids, that is the reason why the vast majority have us have children because they want a family. It is a selfish reason to be fair, but luckily it has huge secondary positives for humanity for the aforementioned reasons.

Again, our entire human society is built around the family and without the next generation we don't have the tax revenue to pay for our social services, we do not have the next generation of academics and scientists out there researching and discovering and we do not have the next generation trying to learn from the past and making the future better. Human life is short and finite, therefore discoveries and change become intergenerational. As the misattributed quote from Issac Newton stays, "I stand on the shoulders of giants".

That’s why I couldn’t relate to your ideas of it being indescribable when you see your child for the first time and how you realised then that you were part of something bigger than yourself. If having a child was what it took to make you realise you were a member of society, I can see why you’d have had an epiphany when you had a child. Up until then you really were only thinking of yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that, but let’s not pretend you made any true sacrifice or that your life choices are any more significant than anyone else’s, particularly when you haven’t actually achieved anything exceptional solely by virtue of reproducing and raising a child or children.

Again, with the logical fallacy of straw-manning what I said. Appears to be a habit of yours. Its easier to straw man my position as it makes it easier to argue against it. I never said specifically I released I was a member of society when I had my children.

Come back when, I dunno, you’ve managed to do something that would generally be considered extraordinary, like becoming an elite athlete, or becoming an authority in an academic discipline or field of employment, and then we’ll talk about what it actually took to achieve such status. Reproducing and raising a child? Im afraid there’s nobody handing out rubber medals for what is simply a consequence of biological mechanics and intuition.

Ah, here it comes to the actual nub of the argument. One is only really allowed an opinion on what is extraordinary if they have achieved something truly extraordinary, am I right? Can I see your Nobel prize, please?

Childless couples are achieving these extraordinary things left right and centre, is the basis of your argument?
No, because that, of course, is nonsense.

This is not an argument of having children is somehow more worthwhile than getting an Olympic gold medal, or getting involved in research that will cure cancer. I never made this argument comparing the extraordinary vs the parent raising their kids.

I did however made the argument that raising kids is more worthwhile than people voluntarily not having kids, because the people doing both having and not having kids are by and large ordinary people doing ordinary things, working their 9-5 jobs, living a pretty mundane life, which is by and largely self-indulgent.

I include parents AND childless couples in this by the way. However, being a parent raising kids, in my opinion, elevates the parents above the childless couple in general. If people get offended and taken aback by that, fine. It is a free country, after all, be offended. But let's not pretend that people choose not to have kids because they want to cure cancer or win a Nobel prize or write poetry. They do it because mostly, they don't want to and couldn't be arsed. Which is fine, but again dont paint it in some other altruistic way as if everyone is in an episode of star trek, that these people are doing something really really worthwhile for humanity.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Sunny Sunday afternoon lads would ye not go throw a ball around with your kids rather than type out massive multiquote treatises that nobody is going to read?

I ain't got kids and I ain't got time for that. Come on.

This is it

Talia Late Crosswalk wrote: »

Sunny Sunday afternoon lads would ye not go throw a ball around with your kids rather than type out massive multiquote treatises that nobody is going to read?

I ain't got kids and I ain't got time for that. Come on.

Too much naval gazing for that.

markodaly

Talia Late Crosswalk wrote: »

Sunny Sunday afternoon lads would ye not go throw a ball around with your kids rather than type out massive multiquote treatises that nobody is going to read?

I ain't got kids and I ain't got time for that. Come on.

Yet you feel the need to respond.

It is summer, meaning its time to be at summer camp.
They will be coming back fluent gaeilgeoir's hopefully.

anewme

Talia Late Crosswalk wrote: »

Sunny Sunday afternoon lads would ye not go throw a ball around with your kids rather than type out massive multiquote treatises that nobody is going to read?

I ain't got kids and I ain't got time for that. Come on.

I was going to write the exact same thing.

When you see these big thesis type replies, they just kill a thread off.

Puts years on you.

Tell me how

2,000+ word post?



Just here to practise my meme game. :pac:

Thelonious Monk

markodaly wrote: »

Yet you feel the need to respond.

It is summer, meaning its time to be at summer camp.
They will be coming back fluent gaeilgeoir's hopefully.

Yet you feel the need to bore us to death. Typical parent.

ToddyDoody

Talia Late Crosswalk wrote: »

Sunny Sunday afternoon lads would ye not go throw a ball around with your kids rather than type out massive multiquote treatises that nobody is going to read?

I ain't got kids and I ain't got time for that. Come on.

Tip: Print it out and go through it, underlining the key points.

One eyed Jack

markodaly wrote: »

That's wonderful navel gazing by yourself in fairness. I highlighted the bit in bold in particular because multiple surveys and studies around the world indicate how people rank their kids as their own biggest achievement in life, behind things like owning a home, giving up smoking, losing weight, graduating and so on.

Very kind of us to tell everyone that they are wrong and you have unlocked the key to happiness for us all. Scoff, scorn and roll your eyes at the mere plebs among us who have such limited expectations on life all you want, it merely confirms to me what type of person you are.

I’m not telling anyone they’re wrong in self-reporting studies that their biggest achievement in life is raising their own children. I wouldn’t expect anything different from a self-reporting study. As you so astutely pointed out earlier - living in an age of the self, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who is at all clued into society that people who have children would consider raising their own children to be their greatest achievement. It’s an entirely subjective evaluation. An objective evaluation would consider what is actually a person’s greatest achievement, and that is generally based upon achieving something that hasn’t been done before, or something that requires a prerequisite knowledge in a discipline in order to make an extraordinary contribution in that discipline or an extraordinary contribution in their chosen field of employment. The critical point you’re missing here is what a person’s achievement means to people who aren’t them. That’s why nobody is handing out rubber medals to parents for simply being parents, that’s something which is generally expected of parents anyway, that they parent their children.

markodaly wrote: »

The studies are the studies. If you can find me recent studies that state that childless people have greater life expectancy than those with children, or that people rank having kids as one the worst life choices or mistakes they have done, then come back to me. Otherwise, take them on board and move on.

I find it quite amusing that you attack me on being an 'authoritative source' and disparage the fact that the science backs up my point of view, while you just offer an opinion backed up by well nothing. You are an authoritative source on nothing, just another person arguing on AH.

I’m not disputing that the studies are the studies. Fantastic stuff, great, but entirely irrelevant to most people. For instance if I were to produce a study that suggested one of the major factors in tackling climate change is to have less children, how many people do you imagine would regard it with any serious consideration? I don’t expect too many would, but here it is anyway if you would like to have a read of it -


The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions


My point being that just because something has a scientifically valid basis doesn’t mean it has any right to be taken seriously. It is absolutely fundamental to scientific inquiry that we question the validity of the claims being made, and when the studies you’re presenting as evidence of your claims are based upon self-reporting by parents that their greatest achievement has been raising their children, while I’m not questioning their claim that raising their children has been for them their greatest achievement, I am questioning your use of that data to support your opinion that raising children is objectively, the greatest achievement of human endeavour as though raising children is actually some great sacrifice on the part of the person raising their children.

markodaly wrote: »

Yes, because most couples who remain childless by choice are involved in cutting edge science or some other noble pursuit, in your estimation.

So, what achievements would these be in general? Don't kid me in telling me most people out there are achieving all these great things, when they don't. We are not talking about the 0.001% of extraordinary people here, we are talking about the remainder, people married or otherwise, couples childless or with children live ordinary mundane lives by and large.

I never argued anything like what you’re suggesting. From my point of view I don’t view it as simply a question of one or the other, as though having children precludes a person from actually achieving something worthy of recognition. Simply reproducing and raising a child or children in and of itself isn’t worthy of recognition. It’s something that as I said humans have been doing for millions of years without any specific prerequisite knowledge or understanding as to the underlying biology actually functions. How the underlying biology functions is irrelevant for most people. It’s relevant to a small number of people who have chosen to dedicate their lives to understanding human biology and behaviour and so on. Whether they have children or not is neither here nor there with regard to their achievements in their chosen discipline.

You may not wish to recognise the contribution to society of the 0.001% of extraordinary people, but that’s precisely what makes them extraordinary - they’re doing something or have done something that most people in society simply haven’t done or aren’t doing. I don’t know that anyone lives a mundane life tbh, maybe it’s just my experience but the amount of people who imagine that they live mundane lives who are actually extraordinary people in their own right, never ceases to amaze me. I don’t know by what standards you measure whether someone lives a mundane or an extraordinary life, but if we’re agreed on one thing at least - simply the fact of whether or not they have children isn’t a factor worthy of consideration in evaluating their achievements.

markodaly wrote: »

Pfft. I fairness you are getting rather hysterical with the constant refusal to look at the data and science behind my point. It was only a minor point in my overarching view on the topic, but still, it's rather telling.

I’m not getting hysterical at all? I’ve already acknowledged the data and the science behind your point and pointed out that I was already familiar with it. I also pointed out exactly why I wouldn’t be inclined to lend it as much weight as you do, simply because much of the data and the way it’s interpreted and presented often exposes the underlying political and social beliefs of it’s authors. It would be like my being expected to regard Freudian theory seriously even though most of his theories have since been found to be... lacking (I’m being generous :pac:). That’s how scientific inquiry works - there isn’t simply one authority which produces reams of studies to be taken as the last word on any given topic. As broken as it is, the peer review system still has some validity at least, and is critical in disciplines such as the social sciences, purely for the fact that it exposes biases in research -


Psychology is WEIRD

And the issue of bias is even more prevalent in the field of developmental psychology related to children -


Developmental Psychology’s Weird Problem


Perhaps now you can understand why I’m not the least bit surprised that in self-reported studies, parents evaluated their greatest achievement as being that of raising their own children. You don’t imagine they’d be at all biased in evaluating themselves?

markodaly wrote: »

Are you a creationist by any chance? Do you refuse to accept that the earth is more than 10,000 years old? What about climate change? I guess the climate just changes all the time by its own so rising temperatures are nothing to worry about and will correct on their own

Do you outright reject all studies in the same fashion or just ones that go against your own personal viewpoint and beliefs?

Well, since you ask about climate change and ask do I reject all studies in the same fashion or just the ones that go against my own personal viewpoint and beliefs, I would be a hypocrite if I were to allow my own personal viewpoints and beliefs to influence how I regard any study. It’s just easy with so many studies being published and available to the public nowadays to spot the bullshìt behind the interpretations of the data presented in many studies, and again - if I can do it, you guessed it :pac:

As I have pointed out to you already, it’s a good thing to cast a critical eye over a study when presented with it, especially when it makes extraordinary claims. I’m sure you’re familiar with the adage about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence. I have to admit, the claims in the study I linked to earlier, while they are compelling, they wouldn’t go against my viewpoints and beliefs. It’s certainly one plausible means of addressing climate change, but whether it means one is a hypocrite if they choose to have children while arguing that people should be reducing their carbon footprints, well, you’d want to be a special sort to point out the obvious contradiction in their position, IMO :pac:

markodaly wrote: »

Perhaps because you are a big massive hypocrite?

Well there’s no doubt that’s certainly part of it anyway, and I’ve never hidden the fact that I am a massive hypocrite in many contexts and circumstances. It’s somewhat similar to the way in which you have accused other posters of getting defensive and hysterical when they disagree with you as though they aren’t as entitled to express an opinion as you are, and not only that, but to accuse me of attacking you and then you go to the effort of trawling through my post history in an attempt to undermine my opinion? I would suggest you don’t load the weapon if you can’t handle the backfire.

markodaly wrote: »

A study from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health i.e. NOT a social science discipline found the following.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28292784#

I guess they are just 'idiots spotting data in patterns'?

Remember before when I said, don't put words into my mouth. Perhaps you should actually take it on board before straw-manning my position again.

I’m not sure whether I can continue to take your argument seriously at this rate to be honest. So far you’ve accused me of all sorts and still you suggest that I don’t put words in your mouth? If that’s not a measure of hypocrisy, perhaps you have another term for what is exactly telling other people not to do what you’re doing and will in all likelihood continue to do if this conversation continues?

markodaly wrote: »

Didn't you admit that one of the first thoughts you had, when you had your child, was that you just contributed to climate change? I think that level of thinking says more about you than anything else tbh.
Anyway, apart from again straw-manning my position, as per to the why you had kids, that is the reason why the vast majority have us have children because they want a family. It is a selfish reason to be fair, but luckily it has huge secondary positives for humanity for the aforementioned reasons.

Nope, I didn’t. I made the point specifically that contributing to climate change was not something which occurred to me when I had a child. I made that point specifically because I was aware of the idea it appears before you were at least that anti-natalists are now using climate change as a reason to further their own misguided political and social ideology.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong in being selfish btw, and therefore I see no reason to justify my actions on that basis to people who point out that in their opinions, my actions are selfish. Like, seriously, imagine if you will for a minute that you would like to have another child. Are you going to consider the idea that you’re contributing to climate change as a legitimate reason not to have another child? It’s backed by science and you’d be a massive hypocrite if you went ahead in spite of what you now know, and decided to have another child. That’s essentially the predicament you would find yourself in, by your own standards. How you justify having another child to yourself is entirely your own business really. For me though, in the same way as I can’t bring myself to care all that much about why people choose not to have children, I can’t bring myself to care all that much about why other people choose to have children.

However, when they try to make extraordinary claims that there are somehow these “huge secondary positives for humanity”, I have to admit I’m very skeptical that they might well be overestimating the importance of their offspring to the future of humanity... just a tad, mind :pac:

markodaly wrote: »

Again, our entire human society is built around the family and without the next generation we don't have the tax revenue to pay for our social services, we do not have the next generation of academics and scientists out there researching and discovering and we do not have the next generation trying to learn from the past and making the future better. Human life is short and finite, therefore discoveries and change become intergenerational. As the misattributed quote from Issac Newton stays, "I stand on the shoulders of giants".

Can’t argue with any of that, which is why I argue that if anti-natalists truly believed in their own philosophy and ideology, they’d start with themselves. However while I don’t imagine we’re in any danger yet of anti-natalists ever gaining the political recognition they need in order to impose their ideology on the rest of society. That’s why I think too you’re somewhat overstating the importance of reproduction and raising children as though they will all make extraordinary contributions to society. We know from history that the facts are - they won’t. They will consume more resources than they produce, which has led us to where we are now, essentially- trying to close the gate on human behaviour after the horse of climate change has bolted. Do you imagine most people are taking scientists opinions seriously? I don’t, and that’s why I would argue that what you call the scientific evidence you have which backs up your opinions, is largely irrelevant to most people - they will make decisions based upon their own circumstances, and your pointing out correlations in statistical data isn’t going to have most people who aren’t thinking it already that they’d best get coupled up and reproducing because statistical evidence suggests they might be happier and live longer.

markodaly wrote: »

Again, with the logical fallacy of straw-manning what I said. Appears to be a habit of yours. Its easier to straw man my position as it makes it easier to argue against it. I never said specifically I released I was a member of society when I had my children.

I have to ask then, what specifically did you mean when you had this epiphany after your child was born that you realised you were part of something bigger than yourself? Because the way you were making the point it was as though you assumed everyone who has become a parent has experienced the same thing you did, and you suggested that it was something indescribable as though only by virtue of becoming a parent could one experience this great epiphany that you appear to have experienced. My experience as I’ve suggested already appears to have been a far more mundane affair compared to yours!

markodaly wrote: »

Ah, here it comes to the actual nub of the argument. One is only really allowed an opinion on what is extraordinary if they have achieved something truly extraordinary, am I right? Can I see your Nobel prize, please?

Childless couples are achieving these extraordinary things left right and centre, is the basis of your argument?
No, because that, of course, is nonsense.

This is not an argument of having children is somehow more worthwhile than getting an Olympic gold medal, or getting involved in research that will cure cancer. I never made this argument comparing the extraordinary vs the parent raising their kids.

I did however made the argument that raising kids is more worthwhile than people voluntarily not having kids, because the people doing both having and not having kids are by and large ordinary people doing ordinary things, working their 9-5 jobs, living a pretty mundane life, which is by and largely self-indulgent.

I include parents AND childless couples in this by the way. However, being a parent raising kids, in my opinion, elevates the parents above the childless couple in general. If people get offended and taken aback by that, fine. It is a free country, after all, be offended. But let's not pretend that people choose not to have kids because they want to cure cancer or win a Nobel prize or write poetry. They do it because mostly, they don't want to and couldn't be arsed. Which is fine, but again did paint it in some other altruistic way as if everyone is in an episode of star trek, that these people are doing something really really worthwhile for humanity.

That appears to be the nub of your argument, that somehow, solely by virtue of the fact that they have done something which humans have been doing for millions of years, which requires no prerequisite or specialist knowledge whatsoever, makes what they have achieved somehow more valuable to society than the achievements of someone who actually achieves something which requires actual effort on their part, and the greater the effort, it surely stands to reason that they would achieve greater recognition of their achievements as opposed to someone who manages simply to do something which humans have been doing for millions of years already. No need to try and pretend having children is doing some great service to humanity either really, is there? If you’re offended by that I would suggest it’s simply because you’ve invested so much of yourself in the idea that being a parent is your greatest achievement. Being a parent is by no means my greatest achievement, it’s just something which I chose to do because I wanted to, not because I thought there was ever anything more to it than that that I needed to justify my decisions to anyone else or feel the need to suggest my life choices were more significant than anyone else’s.

Tell me how

Unfollow.
Tá sé críochnaithe.

anewme

Pure crock of ****e

friendlyfun

whisky_galore wrote: »

Yeah, dealing with shîtty nappies and tantrums makes life complete. Each to their own.

Dealing with ****ty napplies and tantrums is only a small price to pay for the gift of raising a family and seeing them develop. Our goal in life is to make kids, so not having them is kind of going against the grain of what is normal. If this mindset continues to set in we're going to have major demographic problems like Japan. Europe isn't have enough babies are we're sort of in trouble

This is it

friendlyfun wrote: »

Dealing with ****ty napplies and tantrums is only a small price to pay for the gift of raising a family and seeing them develop. Our goal in life is to make kids, so not having them is kind of going against the grain of what is normal.

*Your goal in life

Mr. teddywinkles

friendlyfun wrote: »

Dealing with ****ty napplies and tantrums is only a small price to pay for the gift of raising a family and seeing them develop. Our goal in life is to make kids, so not having them is kind of going against the grain of what is normal. If this mindset continues to set in we're going to have major demographic problems like Japan. Europe isn't have enough babies are we're sort of in trouble

Cause if your dealing with ****ty nappies from say 6 years onwards. Your in trouble.
Do people realise here that kids grow into self sufficient adults which hopefully will still be part of your life in a good way till your death as a parent.

friendlyfun

This is it wrote: »

*Your goal in life

No its the goal of our species. Its a collective function of evolution to reproduce. Its not my opinion.

Greyfox

friendlyfun wrote: »

No its the goal of our species. Its a collective function of evolution to reproduce. Its not my opinion.

No it's your goal and your giving your opinion. The urge is natural but we then chose wheter or not it's a good thing and if the time is right. If everyone's number 1 goal in life was to have kids the planet would be f**ked. When the world gets to 30 billion people (a long way off) most of earth will be a dump due to not having enough resources for everyone, the longer it takes us to get there the better it will be for the human race

Wibbs

friendlyfun wrote: »

No its the goal of our species. Its a collective function of evolution to reproduce. Its not my opinion.

Yes, and not quite. The word collective is a part of it in a social animal. Yes our goal is to reproduce ourselves as a species, but not always individually. In a group you will find individuals who won't reproduce, but will help the collective group to do so. If it were simply down to reproduction then for a start women would die off after menopause, or not have one in the first place. Gay individuals would have died out long ago. There was an interesting bit of research that found that the sisters of gay men were more likely to have slightly more kids on average, so over time that would be an advantage in that lineage. So it's not quite so simple within social animals.

Chris_5339762

I don't really want kids, but would keep that to myself UP TO A POINT as it would scare a lot of ladies off.

I'm in my mid 30s, single, but could do with some company or someone to travel with. It does just seem to me though that everyone I see just happens to bump into someone they like and hey-presto, its a relationship and they're happy. I was a late starter and have a depressing litany of short relationships, none of which are very fulfulling and end up with me getting fed up or her dumping me out of the blue. I keep thinking that I know of no-one else that has worse luck than I do with women.

Now I'm sure some of it is my fault, but it just seems that the whole "meeting someone" thing is simply so easy for others, but its something that I have never managed to be any good at. Theres only so much failure one person can take... can't just get over it and pick yourself up to try again, ad infinitum.

Blaizes

Talia Late Crosswalk wrote: »

Sunny Sunday afternoon lads would ye not go throw a ball around with your kids rather than type out massive multiquote treatises that nobody is going to read?

I ain't got kids and I ain't got time for that. Come on.

Well said electro as a friend of mine says ‘ live and let live. ‘ And lets appreciate we are not all the same but still try to get along. Enjoy the sun guys.

Feisar

lashes34 wrote: »

Christ I hate this attitude - life has a purpose without procreating. How patronising to say otherwise. Maybe your life has nothing in it before kids, thankfully its not that way for others.

A lot of people dedicate their lives to themselves and that is perfectly fine. They want to travel, see the world, have money to have a comfortable standard of living and that is ok.

Each to their own but the patronising crap from some parents needs to stop. Wrecks my head.

This x 100.

Coming from a man with a two week old.

Thelonious Monk

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

I don't really want kids, but would keep that to myself UP TO A POINT as it would scare a lot of ladies off.

I'm in my mid 30s, single, but could do with some company or someone to travel with. It does just seem to me though that everyone I see just happens to bump into someone they like and hey-presto, its a relationship and they're happy. I was a late starter and have a depressing litany of short relationships, none of which are very fulfulling and end up with me getting fed up or her dumping me out of the blue. I keep thinking that I know of no-one else that has worse luck than I do with women.

Now I'm sure some of it is my fault, but it just seems that the whole "meeting someone" thing is simply so easy for others, but its something that I have never managed to be any good at. Theres only so much failure one person can take... can't just get over it and pick yourself up to try again, ad infinitum.

Yes by the time you get to your age if you don't want kids you cut yourself all from most women so its hard to know when to bring it up!

368100

"Other half" is a phrase that really annoys me.....

Basically it's saying you're not a full person in your own right....what happens when the relationship ends? You're only a half a person....ridiculous.

(Yes I'm single, but happily so)

d8491prj5boyvg

kowloon wrote: »

I'd say people who are unhealthy for whatever reason are less likely to get into relationships or have children in the first place. In these cases it's not the lack of children that caused the reduction in lifespan but the health issues that reduced the opportunity or desire to have the partners and children.

I'd say that's a factor too

d8491prj5boyvg

markodaly wrote: »

I suppose it the self-worth factor really.

People can spout on about stuff for all they want but the science is clear on this.
If you have kids, you will live longer.
If you are in a stable relationship, you will live longer.

It's like winning the lottery. Many daydream about it, jacking in the job and living the life they truly want to live, only to find out they have no idea how to live that life or be 'happy'.
About a third of lottery winners go bankrupt and many regret the winnings.

We live behind a veneer of doing exciting unique things where we are all individuals and different, yet we are just clumps of cells at the end of the day, programmed in a certain.

Some here would have experienced losing a job, and having all this unexpected free time to do all this other stuff they always planned to do but never got around to doing because life was getting in the way. However, with all this free time, people end up miserable and depressed. In times of high unemployment suicide skyrockets and for good reason. People miss the routine and a simple purpose. People may scoff and scorn at this, and think that they are somehow different, but generally, they are full of **** and in denial.

Maybe getting off the point but I think it warrants attention.

I agree with these points but again, the science can only say something about the average treatment effect, it cannot speak for all in cases such as this. So yes, it is clear that those who have children live longer, but on average! And there are drivers of this that should be understood to interpret this correctly

This is it

368100 wrote: »

"Other half" is a phrase that really annoys me.....

Basically it's saying you're not a full person in your own right....what happens when the relationship ends? You're only a half a person....ridiculous.

(Yes I'm single, but happily so)

Pretty trivial... but I presume people use it when in a relationship. The relationships a whole, each partner making up a half of it. I'm not sure what your beef is.

ToddyDoody

markodaly wrote: »

I suppose it the self-worth factor really.

People can spout on about stuff for all they want but the science is clear on this.
If you have kids, you will live longer.
If you are in a stable relationship, you will live longer.

It's like winning the lottery. Many daydream about it, jacking in the job and living the life they truly want to live, only to find out they have no idea how to live that life or be 'happy'.
About a third of lottery winners go bankrupt and many regret the winnings.

We live behind a veneer of doing exciting unique things where we are all individuals and different, yet we are just clumps of cells at the end of the day, programmed in
Some here would have experienced losing a job, and having all this unexpected free time to do all this other stuff they always planned to do but never got around to doing because life was getting in the way. However, with all this free time, people end up miserable and depressed. In times of high unemployment suicide skyrockets and for good reason. People miss the routine and a simple purpose. People may scoff and scorn at this, and think that they are somehow different, but generally, they are full of **** and in denial.

Families and jobs keep people busy. Some would argue it keeps people distracted from questions of true meaning. Yes, we're going down the religion road.

The three big forces in life I'd confidently report to be money / power, sex / relationship and religion / spirituality.

Due to being busy on the money front, many people are too busy to get around to having to deal with the religion / spirituality question in any great detail.

Sort the money end of things out, you're down to facing questions of relationship / sex and religion / spirituality.

If people find themselves faced with questions of religion / spirituality, it becomes apparent the gigantic and complex hole that exists in the West. Its so bad that most don't even seem to see life questions as questions of meaning / religion. They'd just live the high life maybe until they get burned out on that.

Despite a lot of optimism on many other fronts, the outlook is very bad on the religious front. When the busyness stops and you have to confront the fact that there's nothing there of any great substance anymore, many people find this incredibly disturbing, often without realising that its the religion / meaning arm of the money, relationship, meaning triad that is causing all the problems.

The argument of being just this or just that substance (your example being clumps of cells) is widely discusses in quasi religious texts and it generally emerges that people do actually have a soul / spirit and that it can be enriched and be life generating or neglected and turn into something quite pitiful and life draining.

I have to respond to the above post because the thread running through it is so life draining. I dont even think its purposely this way, I think its our collective arrogance. We've think we've outgrown religion, spirit and meaning but then we end up with a bleak outlook like the above. One with no imagination, no creativity, no soul.

Always Tired

I find a lot of the people who feel like life has no purpose for those who dont have kids often have at least one of the following

1) A job they hate, or which isn't interesting or likely to leave any long term legacy

2) A spouse who they are no longer that attracted to, who got fat or whatever.

So naturally they think kids is all there is left.

You find a lot more often that those with thriving creative careers in music, writing, film etc can be quite happy to not settle down.

Galwayguy35

I'm mid 40s now so even if I became a Daddy tomorrow I'd be nearly 70 by the time he/she would be finished college so I don't think it will be happening.

My father was old when I was born so that's another reason I wouldn't be keen on repeating history.

368100

This is it wrote: »

Pretty trivial... but I presume people use it when in a relationship. The relationships a whole, each partner making up a half of it. I'm not sure what your beef is.

My beef is people sounding like theyre making out theyre not a functioning human being in their own right. In my opinion a relationship is much healthier if two people are together but have their own lives too....or am I not allowed an opinion?

Greyfox

ToddyDoody wrote: »

If people find themselves faced with questions of religion / spirituality, it becomes apparent the gigantic and complex hole that exists in the West. Its so bad that most don't even seem to see life questions as questions of meaning / religion. They'd just live the high life maybe until they get burned out on that.

Despite a lot of optimism on many other fronts, the outlook is very bad on the religious front. When the busyness stops and you have to confront the fact that there's nothing there of any great substance anymore, many people find this incredibly disturbing, often without realising that its the religion / meaning arm of the money, relationship, meaning triad that is causing all the problems.

The argument of being just this or just that substance (your example being clumps of cells)

Religion...yawn

My mate and his wife talked about religion 3 or 4 times when they first met, one is religious and the other an atiest. They agreed to disagree and the subject hasn't come up again in 5 years... the way it should be.

Also one of them wants kids and the other is undecided.. now that's probably a timebomb due to go off soon