What are some good reasons for having children?

The best bad reason is “to save our awful marriage”. I’ve seen it attempted a few of times.

SPOILER ALERT: It did not end well.

I pin-holed my sisters condoms. I got all the new baby smell without any financial obligations.

Because a-b-b-b-ortion is m-m-m-ur-m-m-m-ur-urder.

So that the human race doesn’t die off.

To sell into slavery.

Many times during their childhood I asked myself the same thing but now that they are grown I no longer question our decision. Especially when the call “just to talk”.

I could give you several reasons not to have children.
Number one: your savings account.

Sunday Book Review
Under Pressure
‘All Joy and No Fun,’ by Jennifer Senior

By ANDREW SOLOMONJAN. 31, 2014

In 1965, when most American women didn’t work outside the home, mothers nonetheless spent almost four fewer hours a week than today’s mothers do providing child care.

Fathers, on the other hand, spend three times as many hours with their children now as they did then, but do better at keeping some downtime reserved for themselves; they do not judge themselves the way mothers do, and experience few of the pressures that make women feel so guilty about being away from home during the workday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/books/review/all-joy-and-no-fun-by-jennifer-senior.html

Having kids is not what it used to be.

My sons cut my grass, cook meals for me, fix my cars, shovel my driveway, make me and my wife breakfast in bed and best part is my youngest plays killer drums, and my oldest play a mean bass and we jam out a$$es off nearly every day.

First of all, it is more acceptable socially than self mutilation. For many unsuspecting souls, there is the economic fact that the choice of parenthood amounts to a vow of poverty brutally enforced by harsh realities. There’s the bonus of decades of exposure to lethal diseases transported to your home from the petri dish which passes for school, the likely chance that your defiant teenager may decide at random to guzzle your liquor, wreck your automobile, or in a bid for celebrity, murder you in your sleep. Then there’s the near certainty that after your lifetime of struggle rearing your ungrateful children, you will wind up saddled with supporting them and your grandchildren in an America where the McJob is now the benchmark. Always remember that the prisons are crammed with folks who were once somebody’s darling baby boy, and that the odds of your progeny winding up as winos or dope fiends far exceed a shot at a rich and fulfilling life. Frankly, I’m always astonished at the eagerness of people not equipped to operate a garden hose to tackle the toughest job there is.

@stanleybmanly Then by those standards my parents were saints.

There are too many people on this Earth. The maximum amount the planet can handle is 500 million.

Okay, so, a good reason for having children…...(crickets chirping)........................................ ummmmmmm. what was the question?
Tonight, I was waiting in the very cold for a taxi to take myself, my daughter, and my groceries home. I had my daughter wait inside, while I sat outide in my wheelchair. She came out to check on me. I told her one hand was so cold, I could barely feel my fingers. She took hold of my hand, pulled it up inside her baggy coat sleeve with her own, and refused to let go until mine felt okay. I guess that’s why.

To continue your legacy , lol

I don’t know why other people have kids but my kid is awesome and being a mom is the most fun thing I’ve ever done.

”the odds of your progeny winding up as winos or dope fiends far exceed a shot at a rich and fulfilling life.”

Wow, @stanleybmanly! You sir ought to write a parenting self-help book. ~

Anywho… I agree with @nikipedia: I have no clue why other people should or should not have children, but we adopted my daughter so we could share all the love we have. One of the best decisions I ever made.

… @kritiper, I hope you’re joking.

Also, they are handy to have around in an emergency…. such as a food shortage.

@AshLeigh I don’t think so, sadly.

Psst, @kritiper, there are over 7 billion people on Earth. The planet has yet to collapse.

Yeah, there are too many of the wrong kind of people on Earth…

@AshLeigh It’s no joke.

@livelaughlove21 Except that we’re currently amidst one of the largest extinction events in the planet’s history especially since the boom in population in the last two centuries.

Our species is disrupting and destroying ecosystems, and consuming resources at an unsustainable rate.

Our agricultural system is affecting biodiversity, pollutes lakes and rivers, contributes massively to CO2 emissions, and is itself an unsustainable resource hog and prone to system shocks—the risks will increase with further climate change.

The economic system treats the Earth like a giant never-ending bin, with practically no regard for ecological sustainability. Externalities aren’t something that concern CEOs, managers, bosses, and shareholders—except maybe to pay lip service to for the purpose of PR and marketing (and larger profits).

And then there’s the “green” middle-class liberals who think they’re helping save the planet by sipping free-trade lattes, driving Priuses, and fitting solar panels to their roofs. or wondering if they can turn their swimming pools into perpetual motion machines.

Given the current implementation of technology, the continued increase in CO2 emissions, the reliance on fossil fuels, the reliance on an inefficient industrial agricultural system, the scant waste management, the ever increasing land-fills, the use of plastics and non-biodegradable materials, the ever increasing consumption of finite resources, the degradation of arable land—that 7 billion and rising is a giant turd moving slowly toward a large fan.

I think 7 billion+ could be sustained with a saner economic system, the broad application of ecologically sustainable technology and architecture, and a significant reduction in consumption and waste. I don’t think it’ll happen. Yes, I’m a pessimist.

Yes we can have a greater population but at what cost? We pack food animals into feed lots and chicken sheds in numbers that nature by itself could not sustain. They are technically alive but they are not living.

This is what we have to look forward to.

@MadMadMax heh, I just heard that story on NPR a couple days ago, was going to post that here but I see ya beat me to it.

I can’t think of any good or bad reasons for having kids, it’s just a personal choice and you better be 1000% dedicated to it if you make the choice to have them,if not then DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN, it’s not a job you can quit if it gets to tough or you don’t like it.
Condoms are available to everyone ,and a lot of health clinics give them out for free.

There are no good reasons for having children.

@AshLeigh I could give you several reasons not to have children.
Number one: your savings account.
That would be an incentive to earn more money.

@Cruiser You raised some very good young men. Hats off to you on a good job!

@Jonesn4burgers That is a good reflection of you, bully!

What reason one has children from a man-centered point of view, good or bad comes down to personal choice of the parents or byproduct of their own self-gratifying acts. From a natural since to show the order of things as nature, or whatever you to call it, to show the proper order because, as it has been said, no children or ability to have children, the population dies.

Thanks @Hypocrisy_Central kind of you to say so

Cuz I like ‘em.

^^ No problem, what is right is right, and even though in the dark, the actions will manifest itself in the light. Those who seen your boys and know your family will know your actions in raising them even if you never spoke a word of it.

I thought you were talking to me and I was puzzled! :)

@Hypocrisy_Central “From a natural since to show the order of things as nature, or whatever you to call it, to show the proper order because, as it has been said, no children or ability to have children, the population dies.”

Yep, since at 7,000,000,000+ we’re tottering on the brink of extinction.

^ No we are not and it is because more people do that nature decrees than not; the way nature sustains any species, having pitchers and catchers, senders and receivers.

@Hypocrisy_Central You are correct, to a point. Too many germs or bacteria of the wrong kind, while nature approved, will kill their host. Too many fleas will kill a dog. Nature blesses MRSA, by your correct logic, and MRSA could kill ALL life on the planet. People get it, Animals get it. Plants get it. We are doomed, and in the very near future.

@talljasperman For the child tax credit.

Lol @ “nature decrees”.

@talljasperman That Child Tax Credit works best for people with super low incomes, at least, that’s how it worked for me when I was able to claim them up until 2005. The cut off was $14,000 gross. Less than that the amount you received was reduced. More than that, same thing.

People with that kind of income better NOT deliberately have kids just to get a once-a-year check. How do they take care of them the rest of the year?