My question would be why you value your kids time more than bouldern?

Because you made them? Because they consume so much time with them?

Or because you are just better in being a parent and biological getting satisfaction out of it?

Unfortunately for me I'm not sure if I would end like you or the other poster who regrets it sometimes.

Also I'm not sure if I want to force another/new human through my experiences like going to school etc.

In dune the king new/realized that he can't do what is necessary but has to prepare his son to do so.

I have the opposite though: perhaps I need to not to have kids to stop the cycle of creating meaning through procreation.

Yes I overthink stuff and one way or the other I still think becoming a parent would be a life changing experience but besides all of the normal thoughts climate change comes on top of it.

Having diff perspectives is cool so it would be unfortunate for yours to get flagged because it seems too aggressive.

Also, “escape goat”, while an amazing phrase, should be “scapegoat”.

It is totally this. We are biological creatures and we cannot escape that.

Love, sex, friendships, relationships, parenting, happiness, and so forth are all aspects of our biology. We are not automatons living a purely rational life. Satisfaction in life depends on those biological mechanisms and shouldn't be seen through a purely rational lens.

Kids aren't a scapegoat for a meaningful life. They do absolutely make life meaningful. Much in the same way eating a delicious meal brings pleasure. We depend on our biological wiring to feel such things.

Oversimplified: would you be okay to create a new human if you know they have only 100 days to life? 5 years? 20? Suffering in school, sleep problems etc etc?

Just because it's evolutionary pre programmed?

I think it's fine if people don't have kids, I just find the reasoning "what if they suffer, etc" a cop-out. You cannot know that beforehand and even if they suffer, they may still find meaning in life.

Don't dismiss critical thinking with an attack on you just because it feels obvious to you.

Missery etc also can only be felt when you are alive.

You clearly don't take any responsibility at all otherwise I'm lost on how easy you just dismiss concerns.

Maybe your need to pass judgement on my character based on two posts should tell you something about yourself. It really takes an inflated ego to, as a non-parent, talk about responsibility with a parent. Paraphrasing: "Responsibility as a parent is heavy as a mountain, deciding not to have children is light as a feather".

There's a song where I'm from with a funny line about that - Life is short, but it's long in small stretches.

What I eventually gradually realized was that the kid might just be another person, but you're not just creating a person, you're also creating a relationship with that person. And it's a unique kind of relationship, in some ways more intimate than any relationship you can have with anyone else including your romantic partner. (Which adult runs with beaming face to hug you whenever they see you come home from work and you know it's all totally genuine?) I'm not an expert on what has objective meaning in life, but I'm pretty sure that deep relationships like this are one of the stronger candidates.

You won't stop the cycle though, others who do actually have kids will simply continue it, and the single biggest way in which you could have had and influence on the future of the world and the human race will have been eliminated.

And that's before you get into any religious implications of having and raising children.

In my pov, saying having kids is the most important way to influence the world unfortunately provides an excuse to prop up the status quo of incredibly imbalanced power and wealth structures.

It also seems a bit mean to posit having children is the way to most influence society. Not every one can responsibly and properly raise children. Or have the financial foundation

I'm not responsible for potential suffering of others.

It can fill up your life, and if you have good close friends it may be enough to feel long term OK and have amazing moments, which I kinda was. In fact, I've spent all my 30s like that, and backpacking around the world. I needed that, I felt I needed that back then, and when looking in retrospect it was right emotion, it made me a more complete human being (and later better parent too). Some can get there without, I couldn't, didn't have the right environment for it when growing up. This worked very well even when married, my wife complements me well in this (we met on a climbing session so that part was covered).

And then kids came, one just before covid and one during. I clinged to that climbing (with buddy) a bit, that was my escape for few hours a week into easy good times that were. Then I had this year injury of wrist, and then broken foot (all in civil setting, ie falling down the stairs in kindergarten) and I lost it all, and I blamed kids internally. I was depressed a bit. My sleep for past year was never, ever uninterrupted, good 8 hours (those damned teeth, how could evolution fucked up so badly? any animal with this trait would simply die out over few generations). That normal sleep is just gone, and I am mentally at maybe 70% at better days, more irritable, less patient.

But the thing is, kids bring up the hardest moments just as much as the best moments of your life. And we humans generally are OK with suffering quite a bit for those few nice moments. Kids bring tons of those. Even when walking relative valley of the shadow now with small kids (diapers, various naps during day that block anything bigger, teeth and lack of sleep), without cheaping out and outsourcing many troubles to nanny (or grandparents), they are amazing to watch, to experience. They love you back, unconditionally (for now), and it just feels natural to continue what all generations since ever did. It had been a rough year, few folks died in close family, and when my grandpa died 2 days ago, hugging my kids made it much much much more bearable.

I am pretty darn sure that skipping kids would be by far the biggest regret of my life later, met quite a few older folks like that. No need to always do the mistake to realize others were right again. But - if one has some serious mental issue which make them unable to be a stable partner and caretaker, then it should definitely be avoided. Too many sad stories out there already.