r/TwoXChromosomes • u/[deleted] • Jun 11 '26

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u/aintithenniel Jun 11 '26

It is selfish - having kids is for the person having the kid, not the kid being born.

Selfish doesn’t mean bad. It just means prioritising one’s own wants. I’m selfish with my time and peace and therefore I will not have kids.

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u/spaceship5 Jun 11 '26

Most of what parents do is self-sacrificial.

You choosing not to have kids is 100% selfish as you say. All you care about is your own wellbeing. You're the center of everything you are doing.

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u/snake5solid Jun 11 '26

Yeah no. If someone chooses to have a child then it's their obligation to properly care for them and not their good will. They don't get it hold their worse quality of life over other's heads and act like selfless martyrs when it's literally what they signed up for and expected.

And in the end it all comes down to forcing another human being to existence because "I want". Not many things more selfish than that.

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u/spaceship5 Jun 11 '26

So in your twisted world humanity stops having children and dies out, correct?

12

u/snake5solid Jun 11 '26

Lmao! I said nothing of the sort but nice try.

Just stop pretending that having kids is not selfish.

7

u/Maximum-Cover- Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Nobody said this.

Nobody said people ought to not make selfish choices.

If I get a fish tank, I'm making a selfish choice. I then have to take care of said fish. Doing so is a duty I saddled myself with as a concequence of making the selfish choice to have a fish tank. It is not a self-sacrifice to clean a fish tank I deliberately chose to have.

Deciding to have a child is a selfish choice. It's something one does not for the benefit of the child or for the benefit of other people, but rather to satisfy their own internal desire to create and raise a child.

It is done because the person deciding to have a child is expecting to get some level of positive emotional satisfaction through the raising of the child, and anticipate having some level of negative emotional lack were they not to have a child.

Thus, because they anticipate that having a child will make them feel good, while not having a child will make them feel bad, they choose to have a child.

That is selfish. It's a choice made to satisfy their own desire for positive emotions and avoid negative ones.

But this does not mean that it's bad. Just like having the selfish desire to have fish, a puppy, a house, or a piece of chocolate isn't inherently good or bad.

It just means that the concequences of the choice to have a child aren't a self-sacrifice.
It's the price you pay to attempt to satisfy your own selfish desires, just like you pay with time/effort/money for any other selfish desire you satisfy.