Kids do not choose to be born. We can't expect them to serve us when we get old. They owe us nothing. We forced them into this world.

This argument bothers me because it seems to devalue human life on a very fundamental level. If your children resent you for “forcing them into this world”—if they would have preferred to have never been born in the first place—that’s not a healthy or normal reaction, but rather, near-suicidal depression. Sure, some people are suicidally depressive, but that’s a very dark attitude to project onto one’s hypothetical children as a default assumption.

If your kids aren’t suicidally depressive but also don’t love you enough to take care of you in your old age, there’s probably something else they resent you for other than being born in the first place. Which isn’t necessarily your fault—some people are just irrationally resentful. But that is probably the bigger risk to worry about. It’s just that, compared to trusting nursing homes not to become abusive, it’s still a better bet.

It’s also not necessarily about obligation, at least not in the negative sense of the term. I took care of my father during the last year of his life, not out of obligation but out of love. (One might define love as the act of willingly accepting the obligation to care for another, but a willingly accepted obligation is not really the same kind of obligation.)

In any case, the goal is to go into old age having people in your life who are capable of taking care of you and who will choose to do so out of love. Having kids and maintaining a strong relationship with them gives you a good chance of reaching that goal. Institutions, on the other hand, will never love you and will instead just fuck you up with psychoactive drugs for their own convenience.

> if they would have preferred to have never been born in the first place—that’s not a healthy or normal reaction, but rather, near-suicidal depression

This is a common misconception, and completely incorrect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism . This is a possible valid philosophical judgment that implies nothing about depression.

No, it’s a cognitive distortion associated with depression that some people have rationalized into a philosophical judgment, because it’s easier for some people to do that than to actually address the level of depression and misanthropy that they suffer from.

It's an investment, not guaranteed to pay off.

It's kind of funny, my wife's mom abused her horribly and is now upset my wife and I won't take care of her. Treat your investments better lady.

They generally do though. Have more than one so you have backups.

If you’re not abusive children tend to remember the 18 years you gave them fondly and provide assistance for your last few years.

I think it’s a pretty great idea for people to “have kids, raise them right.”

I’m bullish on that strategy, even if there is no contractual guarantee that those kids will return the favor.

Such a nihilistic viewpoint.

Others consider bearing children a gift of life.

Where was the consent?

That's right - it cannot be given.

The cynicism in the other answers is appalling. Treating people like investments...

Honest question, how old are you?

That’s why the “raise them right” part is so critical.

People did not live as long and would die of some cause such as illness long before they got to the age where they would develop things like dementia. Our situation with many people living to an advanced old age, an exceeding number by historical standards, is more recent (past 100 years or so).

Is that actually true?

Life expectancy is a bit of a misleading metric in that regard, since life expectancies are just averages. If a population has a life expectancy of 50, that doesn’t necessarily mean that 50-year-olds are dying of old age and no one makes it to age 80. It could mean that there are a lot more children and young adults dying and bringing down the average. So if you’re living in a society with a life expectancy of 50 years and you turn 50, your personal life expectancy is probably going to be closer to 70-80 because you’ve already managed to survive the causes of death that affect younger people.

And you may very well develop things like dementia. The concept of people becoming elderly enough to lose their mental faculties isn’t some unprecedented 20th century discovery. It is becoming more common, but that’s just because deaths from childhood illness, infectious disease, violence, and occupational accidents are becoming less common.