It's not weird, it's a drive created by a billion years of evolution.

When all is said and done, what matters is passing on your genes. It's nice if you can bring up your kids in luxury, but the idea that it's necessary is rather nihilistic. You don't need to be able to afford an Ivy League education for your kids for them to be realized human beings.

If you live in a first-world country, and can feed and clothe your kids, and have space for no more than 2 kids/bedroom, what more exactly do you think you need?

>You don't need to be able to afford an Ivy League education for your kids for them to be realized human beings.

No, but I do need to be able to afford whatever it takes to give my children a fighting chance at getting a good job and having a good life. I personally do not plan to have children until I have some level of confidence that I can help them get on their feet when becoming productive adults. If the best I can do is kick them out of the house when they turn 18 and tell them, "good luck" I really shouldn't be having kids.

That's well and good that you feel that way personally, but the grandparent was suggesting that anyone who doesn't share that opinion could play a role in the movie Idiocracy.

But to address your point specifically, respectfully, 'giving your kids a fighting chance at getting a good job and having a good life' doesn't require very much money - pretty much nothing beyond healthy food, clothing, a roof over their head located someplace with decent public schools, and doing your best to instill them with the right character and values.

You don't need to live in the Valley and make six figures to have a good life. There are millions of happy people working in productive mid-five-figure jobs across the country right now. Do you really believe that, right now, you couldn't raise a kid who could accomplish that? There are people in awful areas with awful schools, who can't, sure, and real poverty engenders social conditions that make that difficult, but is that true for you, right now?

I don't mean to try to convince you to have kids, but I feel like a lot of people believe that if they have kids, they have to provide them with every material advantage possible to compete in a rat race/keep up with the Joneses, and I think that's unhealthy for society and even for individuals - after all, having kids later in life dramatically increases the rates of virtually every adverse medical condition kids can have.

>It's not weird, it's a drive created by a billion years of evolution.

Sure it is, but I always thought we humans differentiate ourselves from other animals by not being motivated merely on instinct/drive, aren't we rational beings after all?

>When all is said and done, what matters is passing on your genes.

I don't consider my gene stock to be especially outstanding, it's actually quite flawed, so I see no point in "passing it along".

There's also no shortage of able-bodied and smart humans on this planet, we already don't know what to do with all those we already got, so why would I want to add even more?

>what more exactly do you think you need?

What exactly do I gain? Except for a whole lot of long-term responsibilities, at least if I want to be a decent parent. I realize this might sound egoistic to some degree, but the same could be said about "passing on genes for the sake of passing on genes".

> Sure it is, but I always thought we humans differentiate ourselves from other animals by not being motivated merely on instinct/drive, aren't we rational beings after all?

Absolutely not. Humans are plain, regular, irrational animals with extra capacity for language and abstract reason. Humans are never motivated by reason. Reason in humans is typically used for rationalization - man is the rationalizing animal. We do things for irrational reasons and come up with persuasive arguments to ourselves and others as to why they were rational.

Similarly, I think it's worth reflecting on the drives and forces that led you to feel this way about children. In some sense, it's a kind of 'sickness' to not want to - maybe that's reflected in your comment about your genetics. In general though, I think there's a tremendous societal malaise, a social disease, that lays pretty heavy on a lot of people.

> I realize this might sound egoistic to some degree, but the same could be said about "passing on genes for the sake of passing on genes".

I personally look at it a different way. My ancestors, going back to the first single-cell life billions of years ago, lived, fought, mated, and died so that I could live, knowingly or unknowingly - there's a chain of life from me going back all the way to the very beginning. Parts of them live on in me.

Who am I to say - it all stops here, thanks, all of it ends with me?

>We do things for irrational reasons and come up with persuasive arguments to ourselves and others as to why they were rational.

We do that sometimes yes, but it's not the only thing we do, sometimes we actually end up doing pretty reasonable things like valuing our environment more.

>Similarly, I think it's worth reflecting on the drives and forces that led you to feel this way about children. In some sense, it's a kind of 'sickness' to not want to - maybe that's reflected in your comment about your genetics.

It's the logical consequence of me growing up in a country with something that resembles a social security net. Historically one of the main reason for humans getting children was old-age/disabled security and the additional income for the family generated trough the free labor.

This function of offspring does not exist anymore, at least in such a direct relation, in most countries with a social safety net.

In that regard, drive is a rather meaningless emotion we manage to keep in check the majority of the time. Why is that considered sick? Usually, it's the other way around: People who can't keep their emotions in check are usually considered unstable.

>In general though, I think there's a tremendous societal malaise, a social disease, that lays pretty heavy on a lot of people.

Sorry, but what are you referring to there as societal malaise? That so many people don't want to have children anymore? I think it's the sensible reaction to the global state of affairs.

Yeah but using it as a way to "get back" at your parent's generation? After a decade of "no mom, I won't have children!!!! That's what you get!!!" they'll get over it and keep enjoying their retirement.

>After a decade of "no mom, I won't have children!!!! That's what you get!!!" they'll get over it and keep enjoying their retirement.

OP did not specify if he actually informed his parents about that decision, he might just as well get his satisfaction from the knowledge it won't happen, without even telling the parents.

There's also parents who simply can't/won't accept such a choice and not even recognize when you inform them of your choice not to have offspring, they will just go about their ways pretending nothing changed, still expecting cute little babies a couple of years down the line.

"I don't want to have children." - "Yeah, everyone gets over that phase eventually." - ":|"