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"But we need your children to grow up and produce product and more children so that we can continue the cycle of funneling the value they create into the pockets of our society's most wealthy and well connected!"

I was lucky to get sterilized in Tennessee (pre RvW), and I'm absolutely hyped about it. I never felt maternal, and the feeling disappeared even more as I heard the 'discussions' about women's 'rights'. The more I was made to feel like a next gen's workforce factory , the more I realized a life of free time and savings was much more desirable.

This is similar to the "correlation doesn't equal causation" fallacy.

Dual income and no kids, is due to the prospect of cost of living and raising a family out pacing income. Housing, vehicle, child care, tuition, are all the items pricing middle class out of options.

DINK is not a choice, if anything, it's more the result of not having the luxury to choose.

I very much enjoy the lifestyle that comes with it. It's less stress overall. And it's not exactly a fun place (current state of the world) for me to want to bring a mini me into.

I’ll bet my life savings it isn’t a choice for most….its a necessity these days.

Just the thought of having to be responsible for a child's welfare in this day and age would send my blood pressure through the roof.

Bummer when my friends now don't have kids. It robs me of the schadenfreude while they enjoy their childfree blissful and carefree lives.

We're completely happy being uncle and auntie

This actually was a choice that my partner and I discussed before we got married. I have lived a charmed life but my mental health still is not great despite that; hard to justify creating another version of myself whose life experiences are fairly likely to be worse than mine.

Additionally my brother-in-law requires additional support. He's an adult with learning difficulties and is unable to work. Eventually he'll need to come and live with us once old relatives have passed away.

My father was infertile but they elected to go for a sperm donor so that I would have the option to choose whether I wanted to have kids of my own. In theory they could have made me with IVF but I would have likely been infertile too. I hope I'm not letting him down but I remind myself that he was giving me the option to choose as opposed to some kind of mandate to procreate.

Dink here. It's marvelous

I am a father. If you don't want kids please please don't have them. Whatever residual guilt or obligation you are operating under I ask you to purge from your system. The world has enough problems without bringing kids into it that you don't want to raise. Being a parent is hard enough for people like me who want and continue to want to do it, I can't imagine how much worse it will be for a person who doesn't or didn't want.

Yes it is true to one extent almost all parents are rising to the occasion. No one is fully ready and there is never a perfect time. But this is a retrocon. Just because you can figure out something and muddle through doesn't mean you should have to be in that position to begin with.

Again please please do not reproduce if you are unwilling or unable to raise those kids. Leave the task to people who want to. If you still feel some guilt, for whatever reason, go look at some parent in your life and offer to help them with any little task. Even if it is just sitting on their couch playing with your cellphone while they can run out and buy groceries.

As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point.

Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest

the fastest reproduced in greater numbers than the rest,

a process which had once favoured the noblest traits of man,

now began to favour different traits.

I always feel cheated as an asexual/aromantic person. We shouldn't be forced to live with roommates for the rest of our lives just because we don't want to get married, which isn't really a choice, it's just our orientation like anyone else's. It's also so much harder when neurodivergence and/or social anxiety is an issue.

No one should be forced to get married or have roommates (or both) just to keep a roof over their heads. Everyone is entitled to have a little bit of privacy and comfort in their lives, especially if they work hard for it.

I can't believe I feel like I have to justify the desire for a studio apartment with no roommates.

If I had to redo my life, that's what I'd do.

With the insane costs of raising kids nowadays, might as well DINK FTW!

replace "choosing" with "can not afford"