All these comments, like this, are hilarious. I grew up below the poverty line, and it was great. Big screen TVs are not what makes life worth living. Something tells me you commenters value belongings so much because they're all you have and are.

I think you might be missing the point.

The apparent concern that these comments show for the well being of children is misdirection and rationalization, hiding the true intent behind anti-natalist perspectives, which are fundamentally eugenic in nature.

At their foundation, these comments presume that there are people who deserve to have children, and that there are people that do not—in other words, that there are children that deserve to be born, and that there are children that do not deserve to be born.

Poverty is just a proxy for other qualities that would be much too controversial to articulate explicitly.

Not really, just that there is a lot of suffering (not to mention many willing adoptees) out there, and that there is no need to create more suffering by having children one cannot adequately care for, it is not some sort of hidden conspiracy theory to advance eugenics. If that is what you believe, then it is likely that nothing anyone says here will sway you out of that viewpoint. If anything, the anti-natalists will extinguish themselves anyway, so the problem solves itself.

I think you might be misreading some of these comments. I also wonder if you are aware of the history of eugenicist ideas in the west, and how enmeshed those concepts are in many every-day attitudes about who should be having children—often without people understanding the history (and original intention) of policies they espouse. I am not advancing any kind of conspiracy theory here.

And I think you misrepresent the potential harm. Anti-natalists don't just want to forgo having children. Many anti-natalists also want to discourage or prevent other people from having children. In fact, I'm sure many people making anti-natalist comments here do intend to have children themselves—they just want to discourage or prevent other people they find undesirable from having kids.

I have not seen or met any anti-natalists that explicitly want to stop others from having children, and if there are any, that's such a fringe minority as to be inconsequential (just like in other thought groups, like vegans). The vast majority of anti-natalists are like the ones in some of these comments, asking whether it is moral to have children. They are not pushing that onto others.

I have at places like PP.

I was surprised to find such confidently ignorant and repulsive takes. It's one thing to have your own goals for your kids, it's quite another to set some ludicrous standard for others.

Would-be parents aren't authority figures when it comes to either what the goal of parenthood should be, who meets the criteria, or what reasonably comfortable means. Would-be parents get to have their own goals based on their own constraints.

My differing opinion is that it's irresponsible to opt-in to raising a child if you lack the facilities to care for your basic needs, with a bit of margin. If one minor setback risks putting you on the street, and you have no support structure at all, probably don't try and get pregnant. You should be able to provide their basic needs until they can provide their own. That's it, except that income/expense pressure is intense enough now, in many areas, that meeting those requirements can be even more difficult than it might have been with an above-average income than in previous decades.

What is the definition of "reasonably comfortable life"? From the point of view of most of human history and most of the people currently living on earth, even the poorest people in US and Europe live _unreasonably_ comfortable lives.

If the viewpoint you promote was common anytime in history humanity would not exist today.

    even the poorest people in US and Europe live _unreasonably_ comfortable lives.

This is ridiculous. They do not.

If you can raise your kid on a median, as in your kid isn’t spoiled and not lacking - you’re good to go.

Median? So the bottom 50% of the population as measured by wealth or income should not have children, according to you?

Median of their environment.

> So the bottom 50% of the population as measured by wealth or income should not have children, according to you?

If that means world where kids are presented with equal opportunity for happiness - then yes. To give you an example: whole class goes on a trip for X sum, one child's parents can't afford that trip. What is moral to do in this case?

Moral thing is for the child that doesn't have enough money to not go on that trip. It is a valuable lesson that to get something useful from other people you need to do something useful for them first. The difference of what you did and what you took is the money you have.

Taking children to the same trips and giving them all the same toys does not give them equal opportunities, due to natural differences of abilities and interests the children have.

I myself was a child who very often had to stay at home when my class went to cinema or to play computer games. I never would even consider to want to have one less sibling in exchange for going to more trips. In fact i would happily give most of what i had as a child in exchange for having one more brother. After all the best memories are not from expensive things, but from reading a book, or playing together with toys made from simple sticks and newspaper.

If your answer to your question is that, if a child can't go to a trip with the rest of the class then that child is better to not exist at all, then your system of beliefs is immoral and abhorrent. And it is a good thing that such a system of beliefs also leads people holding it to not reproduce and by that select such horrible thinking out of population.

You're so hellbent on proving your point that you don't even read what I write.

> Moral thing is for the child that doesn't have enough money to not go on that trip. It is a valuable lesson that to get something useful from other people you need to do something useful for them first. The difference of what you did and what you took is the money you have.

Child doesn't have enough money?! What are you even talking about?

> I myself was a child who very often had to stay at home when my class went to cinema or to play computer games. I never would even consider to want to have one less sibling in exchange for going to more trips. In fact i would happily give most of what i had as a child in exchange for having one more brother. After all the best memories are not from expensive things, but from reading a book, or playing together with toys made from simple sticks and newspaper.

And what about single children families?

> If your answer to your question is that, if a child can't go to a trip with the rest of the class then that child is better to not exist at all, then your system of beliefs is immoral and abhorrent. And it is a good thing that such a system of beliefs also leads people holding it to not reproduce and by that select such horrible thinking out of population.

I love how all of your message is focused on kid, like parents are just passive observers in all of this.

Keep searching for the boogeyman who wants kid to not exist, and not horrible parents to not procreate.

Either way, none will be able to convince another as it's impossible to provide whole life context to one another. Maybe if we had more extended chat in real life we'd be able to come to some conclusion together, but definitely not on a forum with limited time and limited text.

> Child doesn't have enough money

Yes child has the amount of money that parents are able to provide.

> Keep searching for the boogeyman who wants kid to not exist, and not horrible parents to not procreate.

Why do you think that not being able to send a child to school trip with the rest of the class makes one a "horrible parent"? Not providing child with a sibling is a significantly worse thing.

> I love how all of your message is focused on kid, like parents are just passive observers in all of this.

Parents are trying to give their kid as good a life as possible, and having several siblings gives more opportunities in life and better life overall, than being a single child and having more toys, trips, etc.

Median compared to which group neighbourhood/city/world?

What you are saying is basically equivalent to selling one child in order to buy a toy like the neighbour has for another.

Median of their environment. All kids should have equal opportunities.

So the bottom half shouldn't have children? And who appointed you an authority on deciding who should be conceived and who should not?

But also this:

> All kids should have equal opportunities.

That's your rationale for your position? Your position does not follow from your rationale. Even if only median-or-above families have children, that won't create equal opportunities. That will just make the children of median families the poorest children, with the fewest opportunities.

So your position doesn't follow, even from your stated moral standard.

(Your stated moral standard is also far from self-evidently correct. But even accepting your standard, your position still doesn't follow. What follows is forced wealth equality.)

> As a would-be parent, it is your duty to guarantee a comfortable childhood for your child. This means having a reliable and sufficient income stream to provide for a reasonably comfortable life. If you lack that sort of income, it is irresponsible to become a parent.

Unless your family is very well to-do, you likely only have to look back 2-3 generations on yourself (or anyone) to find parents who don't meet that line. Are you saying the vast majority of humanity are irresponsible parents, or do you believe this to be a new standard that must be followed?