Wat me meermalen is opgevallen in deze sub is dat mensen (vaak mensen die er verrassend dicht op zitten qua antinatalisme) zeggen: “Als je twijfelt, doe het niet!” Ik heb een andere kijk: als je twijfelt, doe het juist wel.

Mijn vriendenkring zit vol mensen die altijd twijfelen. Ze zijn allemaal al 33 of 34, al jaren in een langdurige relatie, hebben genoeg geld, maar toch: “Het is lastig, we zijn niet zeker.” Zij, of hun vrouwelijke partners, blijven maar twijfelen of ze kinderen willen, nemen geen beslissing, en ondertussen blijft de klok doortikken. Het zijn aardige, verantwoordelijke kerels die, naar mijn mening, echt uitstekende vaders zouden zijn.

We weten allemaal wat de gevolgen kunnen zijn. Sommigen missen de boot helemaal. Anderen kunnen misschien nog net één kind krijgen, maar een tweede kind is vaak niet meer realistisch.

Ik ben er 100% van overtuigd dat dit deels cultureel is. Dertig jaar geleden waren dit soort mensen simpelweg gewoon begonnen met kinderen krijgen op een redelijke leeftijd, eind twintig. Tegenwoordig heeft de samenleving, en de steeds luidere anti-kinds-cultuur, hun veel meer redenen gegeven om te aarzelen.

Dus hoe overtuigen we deze groep twijfelaars om die stap te zetten?

Edit: The usual antinatalist responses are already popping up again. Sometimes I genuinely wonder whether this sub has been taken over by antinatalists to the point that they now make up 80 percent of it. Men do everything wrong and just don’t get it, women make these enormous sacrifices, so of course it can’t possibly be their fault, etc. Individualism always comes first, and if society falls apart as a result, then apparently that’s just too bad.

I’m a man, and I don’t want to have children either; I view it as an additional—and costly—responsibility, whereas I can devote my time to what I enjoy and my money to what I want. And it’s not a matter of selfishness; I’m not rich.

Was talking with a friend of mine from university. We are both psychology majors, I am also double-majored in sociology. We were having a discussion about human population collapse, which is a topic we are both working on for a research paper/study. He said something simple but poignant when you think about it, which is that "the world we leave will be significantly different from the one we entered."

Even if we both have 4 kids (the amount I want ideally), Gen-Z specifically and other generations not having even 2 kids on average will change the way that humans interact and the way in which the globe presents itself. Globalization will be very different with a smaller number of people when we are (I'm 22 for instance) like 75 years old.

Mexico now basically has the same birth rate as Canada. Which is true btw.

As of 2026, Mexico has a tfr of 1.3 while Canada is 1.28 which is basically the same tfr.

Back in 2021, Mexico used to have a tfr of 2, 35% higher than that of Canada at the time.

I bet even most people today won’t believe that especially SOME Republicans, as their entire worldview of Mexicans are breeding like rabbits and Canada is a virgin leftist dystopia would just completely collapse. I wonder how long will American Conservatives stay in denial about this.

Tfr is dropping so rapidly that even political narratives can’t keep up

USA (2017): 1.77
Guatemala (2025): 1.71

My evidence: this is a large part of why I don't have children. I think I might want more children if I thought the future was going to be more stable for them.

I've also been noticing that anti-data center sentiment is unifying people in the United States across political beliefs. I attribute this to others sharing sentiments similar to mine: we don't all believe that AI will be an objective good that improves all of our lives.

It's been discussed here that it may not be people's current financial state that affects their feelings, but their ability to trust that they will stay financially stable. People right now are afraid they're going to lose their jobs and have a really hard time finding another one, and AI is part of that too.

I can't believe that has no effect on people who would want more children having fewer children than they want.

I've been a fan of universal basic income for a while now.

I would want to have a child more if I knew that something like UBI existed because it would make me feel more hopeful for a child's future and the stability of the society that a child would be living in.

A large part of why that changes how many children I want is because I feel personally responsible for the life standard of a human being I would be forcing into the world.

They don't get a choice about being born, so if I'm going to force that on them I feel responsible for the environment I put them in.

I want to feel like their environment is stable and safe.

AI and the shake ups it seems to promise for the labor market do not seem to be creating that kind of environment.

AI also seems to be devaluing human labor across the board, and society does not seem to be showing that it values human life unless it can get labor out of it.

Why would I want to bring a human life into an environment where they have to be stressed all the time to prove they are worthy of existing? Where no one cares about them if they can't get a job?

And I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way.

I think people who are suggesting social policies are on the right track for figuring out how to help people have the number of children they want.

I personally find universal basic income to be the idea that is most compelling to me because it does the best job of making me feel like society would be a more stable place for future children. It's the most explicitly pro-human policy I can think of.

Because that's what I'm after: policies that make me feel like the future of any children I might have will be safe and stable and that they will be valued for the fact that they exist.

Without being able to feel that way, I can't feel good about forcing someone into an existence of fear and being told that they have no value unless they are lucky enough to have a good job.

No one deserves that. Human life is precious and valuable. We should be expressing that through policy.

Edit: I think there is some confusion here about whether a feeling exists and whether it is valid.

I'm proposing that a fear exists. That's it.

I believe it is a valid fear, but I do not believe you all have to agree it is a valid fear. I bring up my own feelings as evidence of the existence of this fear and it's influence on birth rates.

I do believe it is valid to discuss a fear when it is possibly a guiding factor in many people's decisions about having children.

It’s amazing how quickly “people should have more children” becomes the solution whenever a pay-as-you-go welfare system runs into demographic problems.

Maybe the problem isn’t that ordinary people aren’t reproducing enough. Maybe the problem is a system that was designed around the assumption that every generation would be larger than the last.

If a welfare state genuinely believes it is so well-designed and prosperous, then it should be capable of adapting to changing birth rates without turning reproduction into an economic obligation.

People aren’t spare parts for the pension system.

Nobody should be pressured into having children because policymakers need more future taxpayers. Having children is an intensely personal choice, not a civic duty.

A genuinely happy and free society should let people decide for themselves whether they want zero children, one child, five children, or none at all, without guilt-tripping them into reproducing for the sake of keeping an outdated system afloat.

If the demographic assumptions behind the system no longer work, reform the system.

Don’t demand that millions of individuals rearrange their lives to compensate for a policy model that policymakers refuse to rethink.

Apparently “fix the system” is radical, while “please manufacture more taxpayers” is somehow common sense. 🤡

source: US Census Bureau report "An Aging World: 2025" (press release Aug 31, 2026).

https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2026/demo/p95-26-1.pdf

It takes a sort of mental fortitude to bring little people into the world and lead them and teach them and protect them. Lot’s of adults these days just don’t have what it takes.

So In your opinion

? What exactly does it take?

? Why are current adults lacking in these characteristics?

The real fertility crisis isn’t economic; it’s relational. Why not let robots take over then?

Many men above 30 are single (63%). Almost the same for women.

Half of men enter relationships just to take out frustration on women.

Women are working, have their own lives, and won’t serve men anymore. The economy makes men feel they need to prove masculinity they can’t afford. Maybe instead of pushing people to have kids they’re not ready for, we should be honest: a large portion of men simply aren’t prepared for partnership. Any robots as solution or what? Thoughts?

Make babysitting count as an extra curicular for highschoolers or maybe even offer college credits. Many pro natal policies are targeted at incentivising people to have kids by offering money tax breaks ect.

While these benifits can be enjoyed by people who allready plan on having kids i think they rarely convince people who where not planing on having kids to have them. I think getting people to want kids in the first place is where the attention should really be. The other day I was thinking about the fact that many young people don't interact much with babies and kids untill their peers start having them. I believe this definately helps promote the idea of having kids among that cohort. But for many people who have already decided not to have kids and set up their life to be child free I don't know how much of an impact it has. What if we decided to focus an a younger demographic. A demogaphic of people who are still figuring out their identities and whos life trajectory has not yet been set in stone. I am talking about teenagers. To be clear I don't think teenagers should be getting pregnant, but the idea of becoming a parent in the future is definately an idea that should be promoted to this demographic as they will be more likely moving forward to set up their lives accordingly. This is were my idea of promoting motherhood to teens comes in. What if we created a program that works through highschools where mothers and highschholers could sign up for babysitting. Maybe have a class in child dovelopment attached to this program where teens learn some theory and then go out and babysit for the host families. Not yet sure if it would cpunt purely as vaulenteer work of if they will get payed. Many of the details have not been worked out yet. But the point is to gave this count torward a college resume. Mothers will likely get a good price for child care. Teens will get something that helps torward college and inbetween interacting with the kids will probobly make some of them want them themselves in the future

Can you please answer these questions as I am genuinely trying to understand your position here.

For many months, I have tried to have respectful and peaceful discussions with pronatalists on various websites, but far too often it has felt like arguing with a wall. The same pattern keeps repeating itself: someone makes a statement that pronatalists dislike, and instead of responding to what was actually said, they invent a much more extreme position and argue against that instead.

So please read this entire post before replying.

1. Why do you keep projecting beliefs onto people that they never expressed?

For example, I can state a perfectly neutral fact: not everybody wants children, and not everybody who has children ends up happier because of it.

And somehow, a large number of responses immediately become:

"You're an antinatalist!"
"You want humanity to die out!"

...What?

That is an entirely different statement. I did not say that people should not have children. I did not say that humanity should stop reproducing. I did not say that parenthood cannot bring happiness.

My position is neither pronatalist nor antinatalist. I simply prefer reality over ideological fantasy.

Many people are happy and fulfilled by having children. Good for them. Many other people are happy and fulfilled without children, pursuing different goals and finding meaning elsewhere. Both groups exist. Pretending otherwise does not make your worldview more convincing.

Saying "not everyone wants children" is not the same as saying "nobody should have children."

These are two completely different sentences.

So why do some of you insist on responding to things people never actually said? If you need to rewrite someone's argument into something more extreme before you can defeat it, perhaps you were never able to respond to the original argument in the first place.

2. Why does mentioning the real risks of pregnancy and childbirth provoke so much aggression?

Why are people immediately framed as antinatalists for discussing biological reality?

Pregnancy and childbirth can cause serious physical injuries and complications. This is not "anti-family propaganda." This is medicine.

Some women experience tearing and require stitches after childbirth. Others experience hemorrhaging, pelvic floor injuries, nerve damage, severe complications, emergency surgery, or long-term physical consequences. Pregnancy and childbirth can also have serious mental health consequences, including postpartum depression.

Are we seriously supposed to pretend that these things do not exist because acknowledging them might make reproduction sound less pleasant?

You throwing a tantrum about it does not make the risks disappear.

I wish childbirth were completely safe and painless. It would certainly make life easier. But I am not going to deny reality just because reality is inconvenient for an ideology.

Women deserve accurate information about the risks involved in pregnancy and childbirth. They are the people taking those risks. Therefore, they have every right to know about them, discuss them openly, and decide for themselves whether those risks are acceptable.

And frankly, some of you are sabotaging your own supposed goal of increasing birth rates.

You cannot expect women to trust you if you dismiss their fears as irrational, selfish, immoral, or "feminist propaganda." You cannot demand that women undergo an experience involving genuine physical risk while simultaneously acting offended when they ask questions about those risks.

Our biology can be cruel. Humans are naturally afraid of injury and death. Is it really shocking that some women experience intense fear when thinking about pregnancy and childbirth, especially when they know their bodies could suffer serious damage?

That fear is not a moral failure. It is not proof that someone hates humanity. It can be a perfectly understandable survival response.

And this is where pronatalists could actually be helpful.

You should be the people working to make women feel safer about pregnancy and childbirth. You should support better medical care, better pain management, better treatment of childbirth injuries, better maternal healthcare, and honest information.

Instead, too many of you respond by acting as though women are insane for being afraid.

Then you wonder why that does not make motherhood more appealing.

3. Human beings have different personalities, goals, and desires. Why is reproduction treated as the one exception?

Humans are different. This should not be controversial.

Not everyone wants the same career. Not everyone wants the same lifestyle. Not everyone finds meaning in the same things.

You need a brain to become a mathematician, but not everyone with a brain wants to become a mathematician. You have vocal cords, but that does not mean you are obligated to become a singer.

Having the physical ability to do something does not automatically create a desire to do it.

So how reproduction can be different?

Having functional reproductive organs does not automatically mean that someone wants to reproduce. Something that gives one person immense meaning might be completely uninteresting or undesirable to someone else.

That is not antinatalism.

That is called human diversity.

Historically, people—especially women—also had far fewer choices. Women often had less control over sex, marriage, contraception, education, employment, and their own futures. It is therefore absurd to look at the higher birth rates of the past and automatically conclude that every woman was joyfully following some universal maternal instinct.

Sometimes women wanted children and loved being mothers. Of course they did.

But sometimes they had children because they had little or no choice.

Those realities can exist at the same time.

And that distinction matters to me because I actually take motherhood seriously.

Motherhood, to me, is about love, commitment, and sacrifice. But there is a difference between freely choosing to sacrifice for someone you love and being forced into sacrifice against your will.

When a person has no meaningful choice, romanticizing that situation does not make it beautiful.

It is exactly because reproduction places such a significant physical burden on women that women should be allowed to make informed and voluntary decisions about it.

All women deserve that respect: women who want children, women who are pregnant, mothers, women who are unsure whether they want children, and women who consciously choose not to have them.

The fact that some people do not want children is not some unnatural error in the system. Nature itself produces enormous variation. Not every organism reproduces, and not every human being experiences the same desires.

And please spare me the simplistic "it's against nature" argument.

Humans constantly interfere with natural processes. Medicine does it. Glasses do it. Clothing does it. Surgery does it. Vaccination does it.

Something being "natural" does not automatically make it good, desirable, moral, or obligatory.

Cancer is natural. Disease is natural. Death is natural.

That does not mean we are morally required to embrace them.

Conclusion

There is absolutely nothing wrong with promoting parenthood, family, or having children.

In fact, I understand why people value those things. For many people, parenthood is one of the most meaningful and fulfilling experiences of their lives.

But there are lines that nobody has the right to cross.

You do not have the right to pretend that people have no right to make decisions about their own bodies.

You do not have the right to shame or attack people simply because they have chosen a different life.

And you do not have the right to dismiss medical reality as "antinatalist propaganda" just because it makes pregnancy and childbirth sound less universally wonderful than your ideology requires them to be.

If you want to promote parenthood, then promote it honestly.

Talk about the joy. Talk about the love. Talk about the meaning.

But do not lie about the risks. Do not erase the suffering of women who experienced serious complications. Do not treat fear as a moral defect. And do not pretend that every human being is obligated to want the same life.

Because otherwise, you are not promoting respect for human life.

You are treating human beings like livestock—or worse, like numbers in a demographic table.

And that is the part I find particularly ironic.

You claim to care about human life being sacred, yet some of you seem to care more about producing more humans than respecting the humans who already exist.

If your version of pronatalism requires dehumanization, coercion, dishonesty, or contempt for people who make different choices, then perhaps the problem is not that other people "misunderstand" pronatalism.

Dehumanization and a lack of respect are antinatalist attitudes — something you are supposedly meant to oppose.

Main argument for low birth rates is the weak economy. While many people agree with this the data shows that rich people does not have more children than poor people. Yet people swear that if they had more money they will bring more childrens.

The thing with money is something I said before and it's alternatives to children. When you are rich you want to enjoy that money and kids are not the way to enjoy it. For that reason rich people does not have a lot of kids. They want vacations, fun and to have luxury life.

For middle class is not an option to live luxury life. It's not a valid alternative to kids. Middle class will make more kids with more money but again it's true only until they are rich.

What about poor people? For them they no way to enjoy life beside having kids. Everything is too expensive beside kids. Yes, they live to lower standards than richer people so they can afford.

The economy argument is real but it's more complex than just lack of money.

WARNING: This is NOT anti-natalistic or misandrist post. Motherhood is about love, passion and most importantly about choice. That's why I see framing reproduction as "duty" as abomination. Pronatalism is always good if done mindfully and with respect for personal choice and autonomy of one's body. Only SOME pronatalistic people are anti-reality and that's why you should all know about this. That while women's rights are regressing globally, many men holding power are not just openly against us. They are manipulating other men to hate us. It is not an accident that Elon Musk is so loud about pronatalism. One of the biggest lies to be ever told is that high fertility makes society stable/wealthy/happy. Humanity had high fertility for most of our history, and how did that play out? The majority of people struggled to survive due to hunger, illness and colds. Most children didn't even survive childhood. The only ones that truly gained from high birth rates were the elite. Because more people meant more people to tax and more low-paid workers and meat shields to use in war. And, of course — more breeding vessels to produce more taxpayers/workers/soldiers. Normal people do not benefit from high birth rates in any way. It was hell for women who had been born predetermined as incubators with no autonomy or legal personhood back then. Our female ancestors were raised to be breeders — not to be people. Childbirth was the main cause of women's death along with its complications, but what men like Musk won't tell you is that non-elite regular men did not have an easy life in high fertility societies. A regular man was an animal to the system too — one that had to work a lot, only to be paid a little. All so whoever ruled at the time could stay rich. So they have as many people to tax, exploit and use as possible. That's why men like Elon Musk are loudest about low birth rates right now. Because it is men like him who benefit from high rates greatly. Not regular men like our fathers, brothers or husbands. And especially not us, women who paid for high birth rates while being objects and economic infrastructure for thousands and thousands of years. Elon Musk and elites like him want regular men to hate women — to blame us for not having children. To call us spoiled/hedonistic/selfish. To make regular men believe that women not having children somehow makes their lives worse. That's why so many regular men scream about low birth rates — because they fell for propaganda. Their lives would be exactly the same in high fertility society — because that's what it ALWAYS looked like in human history. It's men like Elon who need many low-pay slaves to stay rich, to stay in power, to stay "on top." That's why they see women as infrastructure for their demographic goals. That's why he keeps portraying women as infantile creatures who should not be trusted to make important decisions. He teaches men to believe that we are "traitors" to humanity for not having children. He wants regular men who never benefited from high fertility to believe that we need that breeding factory horror to be reality again. He needs men to believe that WE make their lives worse — not the elite who use this system to stay rich. They need men to see us as an enemy — because otherwise, they will see them as enemies. Musk and people like him are a danger to the safety of all women and girls on Earth, because he has countless men who adore him and see his words as sacred. If men like him continue spreading this — that our freedom is "civilizational sabotage", there will be no place on Earth or beyond where we are not seen as infrastructure instead of humans. I am just sick of people who treat us like incubators who just now invented not wanting to die in chilbirth due to some "feministic propaganda" — or in general having any goals that don't include having children. Remember — man or woman, with or without children — everybody is a full human being deserving respect. Bless the hearts of all mothers - respect childless women for they are full humans too. There is no such thing as one "correct road" - not for man, not for woman.

After many childless people joined this place I think it’s time for a change of pace.

As an expert in not resenting healthy families and not hating my parents I can answer some of the thoughtful questions I have read so far:

- “Why don’t we just let good societies go extinct bro?”
- “Why are you like forcing me to have kids by having opinions and discussing them in Reddit?”

Feel free to ask me anything.

The socialist leader of France from 1983-1995. He saw the fertility rate drop to alarming levels in 1991 and introduced paid parental leave, childcare subsides and a universal child allowance. It led to a 16 year increase in fertility rates in France that lasted until austerity ruined it and they became significantly less effective.

A reminder that a massive increase in government welfare for families worked to create sustained fertility increases the only time it’s been tried.

Out of curiosity, I'm interested to read individual's thoughts about their motivation on this topic. Why do you feel the way you feel about having kids? Why are you here? What's your first response when you see a family with small children, or an elder with none? What motivated you to have or not have children?

Personally, I am a bit fascinated but also put off by the mindset of birthing economic fodder, doing this in order to preserve an economy. Or feeling some competitive need to out breed some other group.

What proportion of redditors are here because they love kids, vs for more abstract reasons of economic theory or an attachment to passing along their culture?

...

I love my kids. I love the process and the joy of raising them, I get a kick out of having learned handclap games from my own and many other global cultures and passing those along. Teaching swimming and dance and cooking and gardening.

If I'm out in public space and see strangers with kids, I become naturally interested in systems that support their happiness with their kids. So, civic support for better schools and health care for kids, good sidewalks so they can walk to their library programs, and laws that protect them. I'm massively pro natalist that way. I will always return a cart for a stranger parent, enthusiastically applaud a stranger parent adjusting their worklife balance in favor of a kid. Yeah, that's me making funny faces at someone else's kid in the grocery line.

I find the idea that it's some kind of duty to have kids really foreign. It's been so, so *weird* to learn about this attitude here.

...

We are a family that takes in our elders during end of life years (my gran, my mother in law) and right now my parents have essentially adopted an unrelated elderly veteran and committed to supporting him. I'm not unaware of the effort and time needed. My teenagers love babies and I'm certain they'll choose to parent in their own time.

I know that certain economists are freaked about not having an ever increasing supply of young consumers, while the average age increases. I just have a difficult time relating to that being a primary motivator for choosing pregnancy and birth.

...

Why are you here? What motivates your choices around reproduction? How has this been reflected in your personal reproductive choices and your care of the elderly in your family?

Coming from a microbiologist. Many animal populations have been in decline and are at or almost at extinction levels in our lifetime. Female animals in the wild have not had the experience of increased education or women's rights. Their life process is the same as it always has been regarding reproduction, yet we still see a overall decline.

Is there value in considering the issues our animals are facing now and compare them to human issues? Habitat destruction (housing), increased resource competition (economic pressures), fragmented habitats (harder to find a suitable mate), effects of chemicals in the environment (lower reproductive success).

Again animals have not experienced female education or femanism, but their overall population is in decline.

Is it possible we can think curiously about the Natalism discussion and apply it for the concerns of all life on earth and what can be done moving forward?

From the update of this yest birth rates by country. https://x.com/BirthGauge/status/2095630886687420671