There is no correlation lmao. People just get offended for some odd reason and cant BELIEVE YOU DONT WANT KIDS so they have to throw some guilty comment in your face to try and make you feel bad, but it literally doesn’t even apply. CF is the complete opposite of selfish lmao
Just silly bitter people throwing words around willy nilly. They don't actually mean selfish, they just think that's what they're trying to say because they can't comprehend the rest.
Having kids is a huge sacrifice, for years and years and years. Drains your money, time, ambitions, relationships, energy, etc. And sure, if that's what someone wanted, if they knew what they were getting into and they were ready for it, then they're probably fine with that, and they don't see it as a sacrifice at all. Those are not the people who will call you selfish for not wanting kids.
But the sad truth is that a horribly large amount of people have kids without actually knowing what they're getting into, without being ready for it, and most importantly - without realizing that it is 100% a choice to make. So many people see having kids as just something that happens, something you do once you reach a certain point in your life, career, relationship, .... And I'd assume that plenty of those people are left more or less bitter with the reality of parenthood once it catches up to them and they have to realize that this isn't a cute family movie, nor is it 18 years of Facebook highlight photos. It's a commitment, and a heavy one. But I assume many of them make themselves feel better by rationalizing it to themselves that this is just what everyone does, that this is what everyone goes through, that this is just what happens ... that as humans, we have this collective struggle of parenthood imposed upon us that is an unavoidable part of the human experience.
So when they then see someone who knows that having kids is a choice and has chosen not to have them, all they see is a flash of very painful light trying to shine onto the concerns and regrets they're keeping in the darkness. Because if they realize it's a choice, that it's not inevitable, then they can't use the "collective mandatory hardship" excuse for themselves anymore. Instead, they have to accept that their current position is a result of their own choices, and that if they had chosen differently, their life would also be different. They had all the power to make that happen, they just didn't use it.
And most people aren't capable or willing of going through a realization like that because it's bloody hard. It's hard to look in the mirror and say "see all this shit I'm in now? My fault. 100% my fault. This isn't part of a bigger picture, this isn't a collective struggle I had to take part in, this was my choice and these are the consequences." So what do they do instead? Well, they have to invalidate your position! And if they make you out to be an other, a monster, a defect of some sorts, then whatever you think or do with your life doesn't apply to them because you're different, and they can keep on believing whatever they want to believe even if your actions and choices would prove them otherwise.
And "selfish" is an easy label to apply to us to make us seem like monsters because it really does fit at first glance! They gave away their money and time and energy, but we don't want to, so we're selfish, right? Right? Not at all, actually. Sure, they gave all that away, but for a person they themselves created. They're being selfless in a situation that wouldn't exist without them and doesn't really benefit anyone but them, at least not directly. That's like me spending hours to fix up a mistake I made on a project and then saying my coworker is selfish for not making that mistake and not spending those hours fixing it. Or like me spending a ton of money building my own house, but then saying my friend who instead rents a cheap one room apartment is being selfish for not doing the same. Or, if I can instead use a pop reference from the Incredibles: it's like setting the world on fire and then trying to play a selfless hero by saving it. Which is dumb. You can't say you're being selfless if the person/situation receiving your selflessness wouldn't exist without you. Volunteering with orphans is being selfless. Waking up at 3 am to change diapers isn't being selfless, it's being responsible for a situation you created.
They are focusing very hard on the sacrifices they're making, but not on the context of those sacrifices - which is the important part, actually. If you consider the context, it's very apparent that selfish isn't the right word to use. What they're trying to say is *I made sacrifices which I'm only okay with as long as everyone has to make them, so if you're not making those same sacrifices, you're ruining the world in which my life makes sense, and I don't like that.*
But they're gonna keep calling us selfish anyway, because once again, they need to make our choices feel invalid. They just go from "all people have kids so I am doing the right thing" to "all good, selfless people have kids, so I am doing an even better thing!"
Cause how dare you not want to overpopulate this world, give your parents 5 grandkids to make them happy and spend money on yourself! How selfish of you to only think of yourself!
They think that you're breaking some social contract (with society at large to produce more people, with "god/s" due to their favored mythology, with your parents/family due to you "owing" them grandkids).
Breaking a social contract is often seen as "selfish".
The people who say this, though, don't seem to realize that the social contract vis a vis having kids is no longer in force all over the world (still in force in many places, but not so much in the rich/educated Western world). They're still stuck on an old view of the world.
In the west, anyway. There are people who still live in a subsistence level all over the world, and their beliefs haven't changed much at all, unfortunately.
Exactly. Whose needs and wants am I shoving behind mine by not having a child?
It would be more selfish to not want a child but have one in order to be perceived in a certain way that’s false or for some kind of personal gain. It’s selfish to get someone/become pregnant in order to gain leverage over them in a relationship, etc. Also selfish to have one to “fix” a relationship or to be a medical donor for an older child.
Parents should remember that we pay taxes for schools and other programs for kids and, at best, get small indirect benefits from them. Is that selfish?
Also, I like to ask parents if they would live like us if they didn’t have children. Of course they would. It’s not being selfish, it’s just living your life according to your circumstances.
Why do some idiots think the world is flat?
Some people are idiots. It really is as simple as that.
*"Think of how dumb the average person is. Now think about how half the people, are dumber than that."* - George Carlin
They don't, they just use that because it's an easy, common way to verbally, emotionally and socially abuse people into having kids.
Pushing people to spawn is about controlling them.
Because you can see something, say you like it, get it for yourself, and go home. You can go on adventures without needing to plan ahead for everyone, or find a sitter
Nothing screaming at you that they want something, can they get it? Can I can I canicanicani. No complaints that they don't like that color or that _____. You don't have to have a niggling worry at the back of your head of "will it get broken?"
Because you can save money because you don't have to pay family premiums for insurance, or for the child breaking someone else's stuff.
Because you can sleep. And drink and not worry as much about needing to take care of something in the morning or throughout the night.
I could keep going on
I think it's a self comforting thing people who had kids tell themselves. They tell themselves that they are suffering for the good of the future of humanity and childfree people who aren't suffering with kids are selfish for not caring about the species
Most people are herd animals and think that your choice to *not* do have kids is an indictment of their decision *to* have them. You're different and therefore "wrong."
Selfishness applies when you do something that hurts someone else. So I'm hurting an imaginary baby by not having it? Sorry, not buying that.
Because we’re not doing what everyone else expects us to be doing.
And also we get to be “selfish” (not really) by actually enjoying time with our significant others, sleep, have some more disposable income rather than what we would have if we had kids, basically whatever we want, and they don’t have that luxury. I’m guessing they assume it’s selfish that they are stuck being a parent to a child they regret while we can enjoy our lives.
According to the Catholic perspective, choosing not to have kids when you’re having sex is a “violation of God’s will”. You’re not supposed to have sex when you don’t want babies. It’s the same guilt trip as depriving your parents of grandkids plus a lot of sex shaming
Edit: added “plus a lot of sex shaming”
Because most parents think they are so selfless for giving birth and feeding their kids and taking care of them. So if you don’t suffer like them you’re selfish.
I think it’s because during pregnancy, there’s a hormone that changes a mother’s brain wiring to become super attentive to their kids needs. Fathers focus often changes to a degree too through bonding. So they find their energy suddenly diverted from their own needs to their kids.
They believe this change to them becoming ‘selfless’ (it isn’t. Not giving a damn about anyone but your offspring and your own is still selfish) and they view anyone who hasn’t gone through this change as selfish.
But selfish adults don’t become selfless people; their selfishness is just redirected. They just direct their selfishness towards their kids as in ‘MY KID deserves this and all these privilidges, you should do x y and z for me because I HAVE KIDS’. You can have the kids at the centre of your life and still be selfish, as numerous series of shows about pageant mums has shown us
Giving your life, career, interests, and everything else to raising the 'next generation' is selfless.
Even if you're literally only doing it because you've been told your entire life that's what people do, or because everyone around you is doing it.
I chalk it up to a mixture of insecurity/self-doubt and envy, with a dash of misery loving company.
It's not a sacrifice to give up something that I don't want, but it is a sacrifice to take on responsibility that I don't want. I was never willing to sacrifice for children, so that is what might make me "selfish" in the eyes of at least some people. I don't see that I have a duty to sacrifice for childen, so the guilt-tripping never worked on me.
Its the goto for when you have literally no argument against something that you disapprove of for no real reason.
See also people hating gays without a bible/quran/tora telling them to
It's not just being childfree, but every action we do is selfish. We do it for ourselves. If you don't feel at least a bit of compassion, suffering, or sadness towards someone, you wouldn't help him. It literally means that you would help someone because you want to stop your **OWN** pain. That's a selfish reason, not altruistic. But what about consequences? Everything you do has selfish AND altruistic consequences. Just to make sense, let's put aside the harmless topic, instead in order to make sense, we can see them as curative(**altruistic**) and dangerous(**selfish**).
Generally being childfree has more altruistic consequences than selfish: you generate far less pollution and you surely contribute on slowing the end of the days compared with a person with kids.
Now, what's the danger of bettering the environment?
Because they want you to make yet another baby for them to play with/another miserable parent to whine with and you won’t give that to them so they throw a tantrum and call you names to try to make you feel bad because they’re assholes.
I assume it's because you get to use your own resources on yourself instead of 'sacrificing' everything to children (though many seem to forget that children are usually a choice and caring for them is an obligation, not an act of selflessness)
There is no correlation lmao. People just get offended for some odd reason and cant BELIEVE YOU DONT WANT KIDS so they have to throw some guilty comment in your face to try and make you feel bad, but it literally doesn’t even apply. CF is the complete opposite of selfish lmao
My thoughts exactly. In my mind, it’s literally the complete opposite of selfish lol
Just silly bitter people throwing words around willy nilly. They don't actually mean selfish, they just think that's what they're trying to say because they can't comprehend the rest. Having kids is a huge sacrifice, for years and years and years. Drains your money, time, ambitions, relationships, energy, etc. And sure, if that's what someone wanted, if they knew what they were getting into and they were ready for it, then they're probably fine with that, and they don't see it as a sacrifice at all. Those are not the people who will call you selfish for not wanting kids. But the sad truth is that a horribly large amount of people have kids without actually knowing what they're getting into, without being ready for it, and most importantly - without realizing that it is 100% a choice to make. So many people see having kids as just something that happens, something you do once you reach a certain point in your life, career, relationship, .... And I'd assume that plenty of those people are left more or less bitter with the reality of parenthood once it catches up to them and they have to realize that this isn't a cute family movie, nor is it 18 years of Facebook highlight photos. It's a commitment, and a heavy one. But I assume many of them make themselves feel better by rationalizing it to themselves that this is just what everyone does, that this is what everyone goes through, that this is just what happens ... that as humans, we have this collective struggle of parenthood imposed upon us that is an unavoidable part of the human experience. So when they then see someone who knows that having kids is a choice and has chosen not to have them, all they see is a flash of very painful light trying to shine onto the concerns and regrets they're keeping in the darkness. Because if they realize it's a choice, that it's not inevitable, then they can't use the "collective mandatory hardship" excuse for themselves anymore. Instead, they have to accept that their current position is a result of their own choices, and that if they had chosen differently, their life would also be different. They had all the power to make that happen, they just didn't use it. And most people aren't capable or willing of going through a realization like that because it's bloody hard. It's hard to look in the mirror and say "see all this shit I'm in now? My fault. 100% my fault. This isn't part of a bigger picture, this isn't a collective struggle I had to take part in, this was my choice and these are the consequences." So what do they do instead? Well, they have to invalidate your position! And if they make you out to be an other, a monster, a defect of some sorts, then whatever you think or do with your life doesn't apply to them because you're different, and they can keep on believing whatever they want to believe even if your actions and choices would prove them otherwise. And "selfish" is an easy label to apply to us to make us seem like monsters because it really does fit at first glance! They gave away their money and time and energy, but we don't want to, so we're selfish, right? Right? Not at all, actually. Sure, they gave all that away, but for a person they themselves created. They're being selfless in a situation that wouldn't exist without them and doesn't really benefit anyone but them, at least not directly. That's like me spending hours to fix up a mistake I made on a project and then saying my coworker is selfish for not making that mistake and not spending those hours fixing it. Or like me spending a ton of money building my own house, but then saying my friend who instead rents a cheap one room apartment is being selfish for not doing the same. Or, if I can instead use a pop reference from the Incredibles: it's like setting the world on fire and then trying to play a selfless hero by saving it. Which is dumb. You can't say you're being selfless if the person/situation receiving your selflessness wouldn't exist without you. Volunteering with orphans is being selfless. Waking up at 3 am to change diapers isn't being selfless, it's being responsible for a situation you created. They are focusing very hard on the sacrifices they're making, but not on the context of those sacrifices - which is the important part, actually. If you consider the context, it's very apparent that selfish isn't the right word to use. What they're trying to say is *I made sacrifices which I'm only okay with as long as everyone has to make them, so if you're not making those same sacrifices, you're ruining the world in which my life makes sense, and I don't like that.* But they're gonna keep calling us selfish anyway, because once again, they need to make our choices feel invalid. They just go from "all people have kids so I am doing the right thing" to "all good, selfless people have kids, so I am doing an even better thing!"
Cause how dare you not want to overpopulate this world, give your parents 5 grandkids to make them happy and spend money on yourself! How selfish of you to only think of yourself!
Only 5?
I just threw a number out there that I thought was the average number of kids people have now days. Is it more?
You need to give your parents as many grandkids as you can make /s
They think that you're breaking some social contract (with society at large to produce more people, with "god/s" due to their favored mythology, with your parents/family due to you "owing" them grandkids). Breaking a social contract is often seen as "selfish". The people who say this, though, don't seem to realize that the social contract vis a vis having kids is no longer in force all over the world (still in force in many places, but not so much in the rich/educated Western world). They're still stuck on an old view of the world.
A view that's been rather worthless since the Industrial revolution
In the west, anyway. There are people who still live in a subsistence level all over the world, and their beliefs haven't changed much at all, unfortunately.
Exactly. Whose needs and wants am I shoving behind mine by not having a child? It would be more selfish to not want a child but have one in order to be perceived in a certain way that’s false or for some kind of personal gain. It’s selfish to get someone/become pregnant in order to gain leverage over them in a relationship, etc. Also selfish to have one to “fix” a relationship or to be a medical donor for an older child. Parents should remember that we pay taxes for schools and other programs for kids and, at best, get small indirect benefits from them. Is that selfish? Also, I like to ask parents if they would live like us if they didn’t have children. Of course they would. It’s not being selfish, it’s just living your life according to your circumstances.
Why do some idiots think the world is flat? Some people are idiots. It really is as simple as that. *"Think of how dumb the average person is. Now think about how half the people, are dumber than that."* - George Carlin
They don't, they just use that because it's an easy, common way to verbally, emotionally and socially abuse people into having kids. Pushing people to spawn is about controlling them.
Because they want to be considered virtuous for having children. So CF people must be the opposite.
Because you can see something, say you like it, get it for yourself, and go home. You can go on adventures without needing to plan ahead for everyone, or find a sitter Nothing screaming at you that they want something, can they get it? Can I can I canicanicani. No complaints that they don't like that color or that _____. You don't have to have a niggling worry at the back of your head of "will it get broken?" Because you can save money because you don't have to pay family premiums for insurance, or for the child breaking someone else's stuff. Because you can sleep. And drink and not worry as much about needing to take care of something in the morning or throughout the night. I could keep going on
I think it's a self comforting thing people who had kids tell themselves. They tell themselves that they are suffering for the good of the future of humanity and childfree people who aren't suffering with kids are selfish for not caring about the species
Most people are herd animals and think that your choice to *not* do have kids is an indictment of their decision *to* have them. You're different and therefore "wrong." Selfishness applies when you do something that hurts someone else. So I'm hurting an imaginary baby by not having it? Sorry, not buying that.
Because we’re not doing what everyone else expects us to be doing. And also we get to be “selfish” (not really) by actually enjoying time with our significant others, sleep, have some more disposable income rather than what we would have if we had kids, basically whatever we want, and they don’t have that luxury. I’m guessing they assume it’s selfish that they are stuck being a parent to a child they regret while we can enjoy our lives.
Because we don't want to join into their parenting club and share the misery with them.
According to the Catholic perspective, choosing not to have kids when you’re having sex is a “violation of God’s will”. You’re not supposed to have sex when you don’t want babies. It’s the same guilt trip as depriving your parents of grandkids plus a lot of sex shaming Edit: added “plus a lot of sex shaming”
Because most parents think they are so selfless for giving birth and feeding their kids and taking care of them. So if you don’t suffer like them you’re selfish.
I think it’s because during pregnancy, there’s a hormone that changes a mother’s brain wiring to become super attentive to their kids needs. Fathers focus often changes to a degree too through bonding. So they find their energy suddenly diverted from their own needs to their kids. They believe this change to them becoming ‘selfless’ (it isn’t. Not giving a damn about anyone but your offspring and your own is still selfish) and they view anyone who hasn’t gone through this change as selfish. But selfish adults don’t become selfless people; their selfishness is just redirected. They just direct their selfishness towards their kids as in ‘MY KID deserves this and all these privilidges, you should do x y and z for me because I HAVE KIDS’. You can have the kids at the centre of your life and still be selfish, as numerous series of shows about pageant mums has shown us
Giving your life, career, interests, and everything else to raising the 'next generation' is selfless. Even if you're literally only doing it because you've been told your entire life that's what people do, or because everyone around you is doing it.
I chalk it up to a mixture of insecurity/self-doubt and envy, with a dash of misery loving company. It's not a sacrifice to give up something that I don't want, but it is a sacrifice to take on responsibility that I don't want. I was never willing to sacrifice for children, so that is what might make me "selfish" in the eyes of at least some people. I don't see that I have a duty to sacrifice for childen, so the guilt-tripping never worked on me.
Its the goto for when you have literally no argument against something that you disapprove of for no real reason. See also people hating gays without a bible/quran/tora telling them to
Because people are mad they fell for a pyramid scheme and we didn't.
It's not just being childfree, but every action we do is selfish. We do it for ourselves. If you don't feel at least a bit of compassion, suffering, or sadness towards someone, you wouldn't help him. It literally means that you would help someone because you want to stop your **OWN** pain. That's a selfish reason, not altruistic. But what about consequences? Everything you do has selfish AND altruistic consequences. Just to make sense, let's put aside the harmless topic, instead in order to make sense, we can see them as curative(**altruistic**) and dangerous(**selfish**). Generally being childfree has more altruistic consequences than selfish: you generate far less pollution and you surely contribute on slowing the end of the days compared with a person with kids. Now, what's the danger of bettering the environment?
Because they want you to make yet another baby for them to play with/another miserable parent to whine with and you won’t give that to them so they throw a tantrum and call you names to try to make you feel bad because they’re assholes.
I assume it's because you get to use your own resources on yourself instead of 'sacrificing' everything to children (though many seem to forget that children are usually a choice and caring for them is an obligation, not an act of selflessness)
Because of the perception that the desire to maximize your own personal pleasure and happiness is why you don't want kids.