ahah. you stop working, do you believe they will relax? They will freak out, no matter how much you have.
I don’t remember which movie, but there was this guy that was pretending to have a family to go up the ladder. The reason there was simple. If you have a family+house+children, you can’t quit the job that easily…
You are focusing on what you’re going to lose by having kids, but discounting what you’ll gain. And considering that it’s very hard to describe in words what kids will bring to someone child-less, why don’t you tackle this issue from a different angle, but one that you are very well familiar with?! Why don’t you think about your own childhood and the relationship you had with your parents growing up? Think about and make a list with all the best of times (like traveling, celebrations etc.) and the moments when you made your parents proud of you and how much happiness those moments have brought to your family. Wouldn’t you want to experience the same things but with your kids?! Now if your list of answers if very short (or if, God forbid, you grew up without parents), wouldn’t you want to fix this huge injustice from your life?! The answer of whether to have kids or not and when it’s with you and you only. You shouldn’t let others influence you, even though there’ll be pressure. My mother once told me: “people will ask you very often these 3 questions: when are you going to get married? then, after you get married, when are you going to have kids? and then, after first kid, when are you going to have the second kid? after that, the questions stop”. In my case it proved to be true so far…
I fully agree with what other parents wrote here about the pluses and minuses of having kids (so I won’t repeat all that). What I’d like to add is that with age usually one’s patience level decreases and kids (especially little ones) require a lot of patience and attention. There is however some sort of natural “hedge” for this issue, because in general if you are a younger parent you have more patience, while if you are an older parent you’ll have less patience but will probably earn more and thus have more money to afford to pay someone to look after your toddler(s).
OT: I follow regularly updates from Curiosity rover, got very excited about the launch of TESS telescope, and waiting anxiously for the launch of James Webb space telescope 
I have a son that just turned 2 years old. And let me tell you kids can change you and your partner in unexpected ways. The first 12 months with a baby are complete horror especially if you’re an order loving person who likes to sleep until 08:30.
Today I was kicked out of my own bed at 06:00 because my son had some tantrum and wanted to cuddle with Mami.
Yes it gets better as they get older and start talking and walking but the price and energy you pay is huge.
My wife completely changed since she became a mom and at this point we’re mostly copies of our parents even we swore to never become like them. Our relationship became a rollercoaster and the current corona situation is not helping. I’m craving to see my friends and have some drinks with them.
Before I met my wife I ended a 4 year long relationship because it became more and more obvious to me that my partner would not be the best mother for my kids. So if you want to have kids but don’t think your current partner is the one, end it. It’s not fair to waste the other persons time if you know you will not be with them for the long term.
Don’t get me wrong I love my healthy and incredibly cute son but I will get a vasectomy as soon as possible to stop myself from doing such a mistake again.
Genetically, having kids is a positive feedback loop. People who do not enjoy sex or raising a kid are eliminated from the gene pool with each generation. We are descendants of people who had sex and reproduced, even against all odds. Through war and famine. It’s only natural that the majority of people will say positive things about it.
Very, very, very well put. I constantly meet people in Switzerland who regret that humanity exists. And I never could understand it - Earth is just a freaking rock flying in the space that will get burnt by the Sun at some point anyway. Environmental protection and biodiversity has only value for future generation of humans who are able to value it.
Are there any studies on whether evolutionary pressure has a visible impact compared to cultural/social/technological changes.
I guess you end up in a lot of culture vs. nature arguments anyway, which nobody will agree on. Just personally I’m not convinced there’s that much impact (given how fast the world is changing vs. each generation).
For me, when I was much younger I decided to flip the null hypothesis, and only get offsprings if I was truly convinced I wanted any.
I feel like for many people the default position is reversed and they don’t necessarily make an explicit choice.
Many of my friends are voluntarily childfree (late 30s/early 40s) so for me it doesn’t feel weird.
What I would advice is to cultivate those friendships since many people with kids (understandably) cut back quite a bit on their social interactions (at last while the kids are young, I don’t have much experience with people with older kids yet).
We have a one year old daughter, it has been amazing so far. We are still the same people and we did not change our personality (perhaps priority), most friends that got kids did not change either. You have to carve out a piece of yourself to devote to your kid. Indeed life changed, but we like to refer to it as “enhanced”. Instead of late night drinks with friends, you do afternoon drinks and aperos or boardgame evenings, and this is fine because your days start earlier anyways. We are old ~34-38 so we were not into clubbing any more. The right partner is key, in my previous relationships I would not have wanted children. If there is friction now, with kids it would only get worse, because they can be beautifully annoying and frustrating.
Welcome to the club. My first year was mostly screaming and crying and lack of sleep. He was waking up 5-10 times every night for almost a year.
It was very tough but now he sleeps very well and he’s much calmer. For me it become really awesome when he was 1.5 year old and started talking first words. I immidiately started teaching him English one day a week. Now he’s almost three and he knows English as good as Polish (+ some German). That’s really gratifying part of child upbringing.
PS. Today is actually my day when I look after him (I work 80%) and teach him English. He just came to me and said: “Silly dady, no phone, let’s play”.
And that might have been the issue with my current relationship. We were so convinced that we’re the one for eachother and got kids rather quickly. And because we’re 30+ too it was nice to think to have kids now and be done with it around 50 to enjoy the rest of the live. We originally wanted two kids, but hell no, there’s no way to go thru the first 12 months again, even if nature wants us to forget that horrible year.
If you’re a person that likes all the attention of your partner and being spoiled, man you will suffer because the baby will always be top priority. That in return creates distance between you and your partner and from there the downwards spiral in the relationship starts. I mean I see Swiss families and even if the mother is a bit more flexible or willing to give the kid to the grandparents they suffer from the same issues.
I guess the “the right partner is key” is a very accurate statement. Also never ever rush on the decision just because you’re still in the all pink clouds phase of the relationship.
That’s very true. I personally know a couple that tried to fix their problems with having a baby. It almost killed their marriage. Couple of years of flights. Now the kid is in kindergarten and they seem to improved their relationship.
Kids can be such a gigantic source of stress and arguments - if you don’t have rock solid relationship, don’t even think about having kids.
Strong agree that environmentalism doesn’t make a lot of sense if it isn’t directed at improving or preserving the experiences of someone.
Strong disagree that we should only include humans in this consideration. Humanity has probably been net negative for nonhuman sentient animals. Quite clearly when it comes to animal agriculture. It’s less clear what our impact on animals in nature humanity has had (because the natural condition is often quite bad, no matter what).
But I’m optimistic that this could change in the future 
I am surprised that eating a plant-based diet would have such a low impact, I have heard meat production accounts for more greenhouse gases emissions than all of transportation combined.
Also, I find it unfair to compare having one fewer child (so a person that would leave - and pollute - for the average human lifespan) to taking ONE transatlantic flight.
This graphic is per year.
Was there a bug in your implementation?
ah, then it makes sense, thanks
This graphic is kind of misleading. Of course a car will emit much less CO2 than a child will. Especially a car-driving child 
.
Anyway, are these 58.6 tonnes for sure only per year? Cause I just had like a minute of research and I calculated my CO2 footprint for a return flight from ZRH to LAX and this is what I got:
Do you see that the average generated per person per year is 8.4 tonnes? So how can a child generate 58.6? Doesn’t add up.
And then I thought: OK, 8.4 tonnes for a whole year, or 3 tonnes for a round trip to Los Angeles. But how much does it actually cost to offset 1 tonne of CO2? I googled a bit, it’s not easy to find, I mostly found some commercial “feel good” sites, but the price that they quote is usually around… $10.
Even if you take the higher data from this site, it takes an average American $180 to offset their annual CO2? That’s a laughably small amount. Can someone explain to me if any of these numbers is wrong? Are the CO2 emissions higher or the offset cost is higher?
Remember what I lost my temper and called you brainwashed for being so hellbent on meat-based diet? That’s because I had this in mind. That the impact is not that big as you think.
Edit: here’s another page I found. 253 EUR per year for an average German. Still nothing.
Don’t trust those CO2 calculators. I think I once tried to figure out if the calculator on SBB.ch vebsite was correct and got different results, depending which site I was using.
Further down in my post is the background to the 58.6 tons, which I find a provocative extreme basis.
But first my calculation including basis:
My basis is a zero carbon world by 2050, which I honestly find realistic, so decreasing step-wise down (10 now, 0 at the end, 5 average) from 2020 till then. Then carbon emitted should only be 30 years life of your child x 5 tons p.a. / 2 parents / 80 years life of parents = 1 ton per year per parent for one child.
I allow my calculation above to be quoted in Sunday Newspaper articles, but please include a citation/link to the original here. 
"The new study, published in Environmental Research Letters, sets out the impact of different actions on a comparable basis. By far the biggest ultimate impact is having one fewer child, which the researchers calculated equated to a reduction of 58 tonnes of CO2 for each year of a parent’s life.
The figure was calculated by totting up the emissions of the child and all their descendants, then dividing this total by the parent’s lifespan. Each parent was ascribed 50% of the child’s emissions, 25% of their grandchildren’s emissions and so on."
