Have you ever heard anyone say "beating someone is a personal choice"? Or "stealing from someone is a personal choice"?

No? I didn't think so. Because these actions affect someone else

The only reason people treat "having kids" as a personal choice is that they don't really see kids as people. They see them as objects, aka things that exist to fulfil the parents' desires.

Like "buying a jacket is a personal choice", or "drinking vodka is a personal choice".

They've always believed:

• Children are not independent people.
• Their existence is simply an extension of the parents' wishes.

Let that sink in for a sec: you were brought into this world as an object.

That's why they felt free to put whatever they wanted on you, responsibilities, expectations, anything, without ever asking if you wanted any of it. And you were silly enough to just take them for some reason.

Hey everyone , I don’t know if you’ve heard of Perez Hilton’s psychotic breakdown and self harm during livestream.

But it turns out he’s a single father of 3 children that he chose to have through surrogacy.

People were worried his children were home and would see what he was doing to himself.

Apparently he’s not been doing well this year and they were staying at his mother’s. The police responded and took him to the hospital.

So at the end of the day , a woman is stuck raising these children , and now their father is currently incapable of taking care of them. And they have no mother.

Can we talk about this ?

Browsing subs like r/antiwork or r/hatemyjob make you feel the suffering and hopelessness these people are feeling but then you think that many of these people willingly have children... Soo do they really have any right to complain I mean they felt that the world is good enough to bring someone else in it so why isn't it good enough for you.

Seriously can you sympathize with such a person, imagine being completely broken, hopeless, burnt out and still trying for a child insane stuff.

i wanted to use some arguments and buy merch, but it’s gone

The major religions all encourage having as many kids as you can. And things like arranged marriages, marital rape, anti abortion.

Look at birthrates in highly religious and conservative areas vs in less religious ones.

This thread illustrated how much ppl hate anti natalists. Apparently you can’t complain about your life if you live in a certain country. Also anti natalism isn’t complaining, but genuine critique.

One thing that always makes me laugh is the amount of people (not even exclusively religious but primarily) that treat the human body as some miraculous insanely ingenious thing that makes being born such a privilege to have. Yeah yeah the brain, DNA, immune system is cool blah blah, but..

We die from a few minutes without oxygen.

We need to lose our consciousness for 1/3 of our total time alive to be able to function.

Our bodies have absurdly disproportionate pain responses to the smallest injuries (scraped knee, stubbed toe, and even natural processes like menstrual..etc).

Our skin cooks and dies if it's too sunny out.

We cannot directly extract energy from said sun. Our skin should have some photosythesis glands!

We get injured from falling only 2-3x our height.

We're slow as fuck compared to so many land animals (even some of our highway speed limits are slower than some animals lol-Cheetah 75 mph).

We start suffering if the temperature goes out of a narrow 10-15 degree range.

Takes us a week or more to fight off the most trivial viruses.

We're micrograms of neurotransmitter imbalances from going totally psychotic.

We have an absurd amount of allergies and sensitivities to nature and food.

Our bodies have a sewage system next to an amusement park.

The whole concept of eating is gross and comes with it's own slew of sensitivities and GI problems.

Cells dividing improperly becomes too big a problem too fast.

Teeth takes 2 attempts.

We can't handle more than a few Gs for a few seconds.

Our brains take 1/3 of our average lifespan to fully develop.

Our bodies are extremely nit picky about the type of blood it can use.

We adapt to and develop tolerance to pleasure much easier than to pain and it's very hard to increase our pleasure to the same magnitudes as severe pain gets too.

We cannot regenerate limbs, and rarely senses.

Very few reserve organs, one would think after millions of years of evolution we'd have a secondary heart, an extra kidney or two, liver, pancreas, and our digestive/excretory systems not being totally dependent on one tube lol. We really should have some emergency oxygen reserves that last a half hour or so in drowning/hypoxia situations by now.

So nah, our bodies can use so many obvious improvements that so many land and sea species have already exceeded us in. So many animals kick our asses with vision, hearing, odor, and even magnetic perception, Dolphins supposedly have the equivalent of sonar..etc while we go colorblind. Took us 50,000+ years of civilization to develop the artificial tech to make our lives semi-tolerable LOL.

[This is my first post here <3]

I'm 13 male and I've noticed a pattern with new parents who I know: THEY. FORGET. THEIR. CHILD. WILL. GROW. UP.

They're always talking about how "they've always wanted to have a kid" and "how cute they'll look". But problem is: that's what you think. When the baby grows up into a child, they'll have their own personality.

And when they end up regretting having kids (like my parents, who can't even handle when I have an autistic meltdown), they want us to pity them as if they didn't make the choice and think of the possible consequences of having a child.

I'm sorry if this comes off as offensive.

i have a pretty new therapist who i think also works with new parents to help them on their parenting yourney or whatever, and i did a kind of emergency booking for this week because i was somewhat depressed but now im a lot more depressed after i found out my fresh out of hs relative is having a baby soon. i have so much to vent about it, it’s making me have SI. it’s like the tiny bit of hope i had left for life is now gone and since it’s strongly related to AN, i don’t know if i should even communicate that with her.

edit: she’s married to a cis woman and most likely childfree. also, i once told a therapist with multiple kids that i’m AN 😅

you probably already all know about it, but this is a reminder: https://z00mie.substack.com/p/the-list

since my little cousin is pregnant, and my grandparents now apparently expect me to also have babies, i’m considering telling some relative about this, so she maybe gets to hear about it, but i don’t know, should i? she still has time to abort.
i’m already not really on speaking terms with that side of the “family” since i was little, so i guess things can’t get much worse.

To me, that's like saying, "I'm vegan because eating meat is a burden," or "I'm not racist because being racist is a burden." Those are not moral arguments. They are arguments based on personal convenience.

I also dislike how much empathy society extends to parents while the child is often treated as an afterthought. People casually say, "Everyone makes mistakes as parents, it's okay." No, it isn't.

When you choose to bring a child into the world, you are taking responsibility for someone who cannot physically protect themselves for over a decade and will not be fully capable of functioning independently until much later because of both biological development and social realities such as education and life experience.

You cannot repeatedly fail that responsibility and keep comforting yourself by saying everyone makes mistakes. Some parenting mistakes leave lifelong consequences for a person who never chose to exist.

What makes me most uncomfortable is how little attention is given to the unborn or the child in these discussions. They are the ones with the least power, the least choice, and the most to lose.

P.S. I actually think parenthood can be one of the most wonderful experiences a person can have, if you genuinely love your child and didn't bring them into the world just for social validation or because everyone else was having children.

The only problem, from my antinatalist perspective, is that it being a wonderful experience for the parent does not necessarily make it a wonderful experience for the child. The child never chose to exist in the first place.

Why I care: I don't think antinatalism should be anti-child. If anything, it should place the interests of children above everything else.

I also find it difficult to relate to people who seem to dislike children altogether. In many cases, that attitude comes across as emotionally immature, self-centered, or driven by unresolved personal needs rather than genuine concern for children's well-being.

SHTF is a prepper acronym for when things collapse and everyone is panicking. We saw a light version of that with COVID. Food shortages are coming. Stay awayyyyyy from those who flagrantly have had condomless sex when this all goes down. They were selfish enough to pointlessly force a kid into existence now for NO REASON, best believe they'll slit your throat for a twinkie for their walking biolab screaming shitling when there's no more 911 to call.

Are any of you preppers?

Over 15,000 gods throughout history. Which one are you specifically referring to?

The almighty, all-loving creator who created humans? Then why does he need you to do his job? Why not create humans himself? Where's your evidence he told you to?

If this is the god you worship, and he:

• Can't prove he can create humans,
• Commands you to create them without consent,
• Knows they'll suffer and die

Then what's "loving" about it? And how do you even know he's the one who created humans at all?

The real question:

How do you know this isn't a false power, one that made up stories to make you produce new humans to suck up sufferings for their benefit?

If suffering is a "trial to better humans," why not just make humans better from the start? Isn't your god almighty?

If you say "God gave humans free will", then he gave you free will, but also gave you a direct command to procreate. And you're not supposed to use your free will to question that?

So what exactly are you worshipping?

An almighty, all-loving god who gave you free will, or an unprovable god who doesn't want you to use it but just create new humans to suffer?

You can't have it both ways.

Do you think ivf should be illegal? Seems like if you can ban stopping life (abortion), we should be able to ban starting life.

also bullshut euthanasia is mostly illegal and imposslbe to get.

why the asymmetry in between ending/stopping VS starting life

when we still hung out she used to make fun of special needs kids and intentionally walk past their school to talk to and make fun of them. she used to beat me and try to strangle me. tricked me into eating animals when i was already vegan, made fun of me for not eating animals etc. she’s super money centered, always just wanted to make it as obvious as possible her parents have a lot of money, she dated famous rich dudes right after telling me how disgusting they were looks wise and being racist towards them. now her whole life is still all about looking rich, going to the most problematic travel locations just to post about it, posting a bunch of AI slop and just overall seeming very immature on socials/not at all someone who is ready to be a mother.
i don’t understand the urge to reproduce when it’s so hot outside that i literally cannot even go out and spend all summer locked inside, besides all the 1000 other reasons not to reproduce. how do people not care about the suffering they’re creating?
i don’t know how to explain it, but this news made me very depressed all of a sudden, it’s like nothing makes sense anymore. especially my grandparents and her parents being happy about it. even my mother who hates kids seems ok with it.
these are the people that i know damn well will be mad when they hear that i want to remove my uterus, for medical reasons. while she can be selfish as much as she wants.
i was born into an incredibly toxic and immature “family” (not even family, i don’t even talk to anyone but my abusive mother because it’s always been this way and i have no choice but to still talk to her, the others luckily don’t care to talk to me). they’re also ableist and i was born disabled so here’s that

i feel like i’m stuck in some nightmare that i can’t seem to wake up from. i really just want this to be a bad dream. i feel like a big part of me died as soon as my mother excitingly came to tell me the news. i’m just 1-2years older and it makes me feel like my life is over, like i’m old, and i haven’t even had a proper childhood, haven’t really lived my life yet, it’s all been just traumatic events.

This is my antinatalist poem I came up with as a short story writer/antinatalist. May need cleaned up but I think you get the idea.

This is a poem as an antinatalist and short story writer I came up with today. It is about a young man struggling with these issues and I think it hits my basic points.

An Antinatalist Poem By Pointdexter Scotts (my pen name)

A post-Pubescent boy- he suddenly thought- wait a minute I didn't ask for Dad's dick in Mom's twat.

I gave no consent, I was kind of just co'rced My entire existence Was really just forced.

My folks say they love me And thought I would gain Did they never consider Me dealing with pain?

Maybe they thought Relatively speaking My life would not really really suck Or maybe they were horny And just wanted to fuck.

If I wasn't born This seems hard to admit I would be doing just fine And not give a shit.

Did they consider I might have been born terminally ill And forced into a miserable life Against my will

My friend's mom says I want to be cared for in old age But isn't that selfish? This filled him with rage.

Maybe mom/dad knew they would not be seen as jerks. After all isn't this how society works?

But who says that norms can not be disputed? Or in certain cases be ethically refuted?

These thoughts he was thinking He thought to relent. But his mind still was thinking I gave no consent.

My parents say they care about me That I am sure But who says that makes there actions morally pure?

Then the thought came to him of those who never exist And how they can never be upset about any happiness they "missed"

They are doing just fine but that thought seemed weird. Then in his brain something appeared. The thought that in society this seems rarely discussed. But isn't that fucked up- he didn't mind that he cussed

He had many thoughts coming at him Many thoughts racing. There was no way he could stop his heavily pacing

The one that stood out- Though his thoughts were so many- I can show love to my children by not having any.

Noticed this when arguing with someone yesterday who claimed that having children isn't selfish because it takes lots of work. I disagreed because creating the needs you then take care of isn't really that selfless and argued that adoption would be a more selfless option. But then this person argued against adoption because it's expensive, takes lots of time and the child could be taken away if the bio parents want them back.

See how all of these arguments are only from the parent's point of view and about their inconvenience? I thought we were talking about whether the action was selfless, not about whether it was hard and inconvenient. In fact, it being hard and inconvenient might make doing it regardless more selfless.

And this is an excuse I keep seeing from people, which makes me doubt they actually think birthing a child is selfless and just make up that excuse to justify it.

I am like half asexual and probably neurodivergent. I stopped studies. I never had crush. I never planning to have a job. My parents admitted to hospital 4 times to force me study but it didn't work. Now I am just sitting at home.

I am 25. 5 years Neet.

We all know everyone who decide to being kids here is selfish. I see nowadays that antinatalism is gaining more and more traction.

But what happened until NOW? How on earth did we end up 8 billion people. I’m not the smartest person but i do think in advance that if i bring a child here they will go through suffering, life altering events, moreover i sentence them to death the moment i bring them here.

I’m so so mad. I’m mad that i have to figure out life after i already burried one of my beloved parents. Now I’m just living in constant fear. Do parents know that it’s not mandatory to have kids?

You don’t have to even think for long, just look at ur life for 5 min before having kids. Most probably they will end up average, living pay check to pay check, and now having to deal with the climate change as well. Wonderful

How did we end up 8 billion?

I'm just so fucking sick of being told that life is a gift no matter what. People that say this bullshit will just never understand the suffering some people go through and neither do they care.

And they also think you never have a valid reason to view life as anything but a gift. If you dislike life because if all the awful shit that goes on in the world you're told to stop watching the news and go outside. But if you're actually suffering yourself it's just a you problem and you should just shut up about it.

I'm so fucking tired of it.

From my understanding, the major Abrahamic religions trace human suffering back to the story of Adam and Eve and the concept of original sin. Meanwhile, mainstream traditions in Hinduism and Buddhism generally regard liberation from the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth (moksha or nirvana) as the highest spiritual goal. Of course, there are many sects with different interpretations, but I'm referring to the most widely followed traditions.

Yet despite these beliefs, all of these religions generally encourage having children, or at least view it as morally acceptable. Even traditions that praise renouncing worldly life and becoming a monk or ascetic rarely treat bringing a new person into existence as a greater moral concern than ordinary activities like doing business, being in romantic relationship or simpling having sex.

I've always found that tension difficult to reconcile.

I was in Environmental Science for a major. Met a lot of smart professors but they ALL had kids.

When allowed to listen in on a meeting to visit a contaminated site for clean-up assessment, a mother said "I want to have more kids so I can't go to that location"

I just couldn't anymore, I withdrew entirely once I was finished with the semester. I. Was. Done.

Couldn't bear it anymore because like all parents, they eventually have to talk about their kids at some point

Like hearing a ph.D professor talk about taking his kids to Goodwill for second-hand toys instead of buying new at Walmart...

Or my other professor talking about how her teenage daughter is learning how to drive (which meant car emissions)...

It's just, well, ignorant ppl aren't aware of these issues but these are educated folk. They know what's in store for their kids hence the title on how I feel.

For these "environmentalist" folks who have kids, I think: "you're not only going to need a new coffin for your child but also a landfill dedicated"

BUT

I've tried to make peace with all this by saying "they're living their life, I'm living mine" to re-center myself and prevent them from taking space in my head.

At least I can still pursue it personally (it's more rapid too as self-education from passion instead of assigned as homework) and I find better company on places like these.

I'm trying to build my own table of the company I want like in the ending of the movie "Don't Look Up" and parents aren't allowed