Yeah. It's like nobody wants to acknowledge positive side

Both can be true. At the same time

Unironically I probably will have kids in the next couple years. Just enjoying it while I can.

"Get your feet out of your brothers mouth."

One of many phrases that I never thought I would have to say before I became a parent.

Elementary teacher here. I can corroborate that everything is somehow sticky at school, too.

Where did the money go? I’m not buying much more.

Daycare costs me more than my mortgage. Admittedly, I have a relatively cheap mortgage, but still...

Tbf, people who talk like this shouldn’t really have kids anyway so it’s an issue that resolves itself.

I’m personally in the boat of seeing kids as adding to one’s life rather than draining it and making dreams rather than taking them away. But having kids is something my partner and I want. My only other dream is to ever own the roof over my head, but that’s not totally likely.

I feel that having kids would not seem as daunting for more people if we had real safety nets to support people that would even consider being parents. Such as free daycare, a basic income, universal healthcare, and stipends specifically to pay for costs associated with kids like for diapers, bottles, books, ever changing clothes sizes, etc.

don't blame being fat and boring on kids.

Shouldn't get kids because you might need them when you're old. Chances are, you'll hear from them once every couple months because they have their own lives to deal with.

My father's counterargument to my refusing to procreate is exactly this. "Who's going to take care of you when you're old?" What that told me is his main reason for having kids was to have someone do that for him. Funny, because despite having lived under the same roof, he wasn't much in my life, or has made any positive inpact on me. Everything was on mom (and sometimes grandmother). And now listening to him talk like some day I will move back to the country and abandon my entire life to take care of him/them, while right at this moment he's being extremely financially irresponsible? Cool cool cool. My partner's mother expects the same, all the while she doesn't work at all because it's beneath her.

With that said, I find having children for the sole purpose of them taking care of me in my old age not only selfish (especially with the imminent climate collapse), it's also risky (and I'm not even talking cases where the child has disabilities and can't take care of their own needs). And that's in the case I even live that long.