Riddhi Miistry
@miistrygirl · 4:51
Is it selfish to be childfree? #DebateThis #swellsunday #swell #AskSwell #parenting #childfree #relationship #indiansociety
They decide to be child free. And when you ask them why, they will have all valid reasons. Reasons like they are not financially stable. Perfect. This reason should be enough for you to not have a baby if you don't want to. Because you have been struggling your entire life, from school to college to work and now marriage. You barely have time to be with your partner. You barely have time to work hard. You have struggled your entire life
Mary Shokralla
@marysh0k · 1:03
The state of the way the world is in today, it is absolutely, 100% not selfish for a woman to decide she does not want children. Number one, men are not what they used to be. It is not a promise. They will always be there. And if they will, it will most likely not be the best examples of husbands, fathers, et cetera. Number two, financial issues are a huge part of why women do not want to have children
Those changes are not happening fast enough or are not significant enough to make any kind of big difference, right? And to add more humans to the mix seems irresponsible and selfish. Selfish for the individual that they get to be happy in fulfilling that desire, but not at all considering anyone else on the planet. And it's not like I think that every time someone wants to have a baby they should consider the entire planet
Farika B Redux
@FarikaB_Redux · 4:59
And I do get that it could start off with marriage, just like my parents did and ended divorce. And therefore that could create single parenting or like a single parent. But what I realized, I will say maybe what I realized is that I was trying to avoid the relationship that my parents had and by doing so, I kind of stopped wanting to have children or I didn't want to have children just for the notion of having them
Chelsea Hanawalt
@allowthesun · 2:44
And I am looking forward to I haven't listened to everybody's responses from this yet, but I just really wanted to respond with that quote and this idea of pronatalism and that right. It's just so embedded in us that we to be valid is to have kids. And that, yeah, if you don't have kids that you're selfish. But as you stated, there's so many reasons why people choose not to have kids or just are unable to have kids
Why can't we look at it as this person knows exactly what they want and they know themselves well enough to make an informed decision that works for them and just keep carrying on and respect that. Those people who choose not to have their own children sometimes become the best uncles, aunts and support people while people are raising their children. Because it does really take a village to raise a child
Then when I was divorced oh, you're divorced? Why haven't you found anybody yet? Well, maybe because I don't want to find somebody or we can't hang out because you don't have a partner. Once you have a partner, then we'll hang out together. You know what I mean? There's all these ridiculous notions that I'm like
Chelsea Hanawalt
@allowthesun · 2:00
Yes, Christina, I fullheartedly agree with everything you said and just that everyone should be loved and respected and valued for just being here on Earth. Yes, just really beautifully said. And, yeah, I don't understand the whole having all these boundaries of what you should be to be able to hang out with someone or to be respected. Yes. It's just baffling. But I appreciate having these conversations, and I wanted to share as well
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 3:02
So there's that for those that are wondering if their children are going to take care of them, I hope so, but there's no guarantee that that's going to happen. And then, like you said, all the selfish reasons that people choose to have children, sometimes it's always about selves and not really about the children themselves
Jordan Tepper
@JordanTepper · 3:44
Because there's plenty of kids in the adoption system, at least, and kids don't need to go there, brush them off, get new friends, get friends that don't have kids, if that's possible, because it sounds like that these friends of yours are kind of toxic, and it's okay. Family can be kind of toxic, too. My mom is, and every therapist that I've been with has told me that I need to have space between me and my mom
Tanya Coles
@MsColes77 · 2:06
And so thank you for bringing some balance to the conversation and a real perspective to the conversations. Because I think that sometimes parents have a tendency to romanticize the whole parenting journey. And they don't want to tell you about all the difficult times, all the challenging times, all the times where they were ready to throw in the towel, all the times where their kid drove them up a wall and they just was ready to pull all their hair out
Jordan Tepper
@JordanTepper · 2:33
I think I'm an attentive, and I think I'm a good parent, but I don't talk babies to them if I see that being done at their school, at their daycare, when they were in daycare. I talked to the school, and I told them to not make sure the teacher doesn't do that, because I don't want to support the behavior that was causing that when they were doing that. I don't want that to become a thing
Erica Jean
@HeyItsErica · 4:38
But now I am at the age and the point where I don't care what people think at all because I see children as human beings that require a certain level of care that I am just not excited or joyful to give at this time. What's interesting is that I actually do love children. I was in the school system for a while, and I used to work at daycare. My husband and I, we enjoy taking care of our niece and nephews. We practically, almost raised them ourselves
Luce Fonrose
@ilovelucee · 4:25
And with all the things that I've seen, even my own personal experiences, it's like I don't know if I would I don't know if it's worth it because I never want my child to feel like how a lot of us felt, how a lot of people felt growing up. And I know that the world is just getting more and more chaotic. So sometimes I say to myself, I don't know if this is really the right decision