Antinatalism: Is having children a selfish act of faith?

Antinatalism: Is having children an act of faith or ego?

No one signs a contract with a money-back guarantee when they decide to have a child. And yet, much of the public conversation behaves as if such a policy existed: the child will be healthy, will be happy, and, if needed, will take care of us. When statistics shatter that assumption—a chronic illness, a severe disability, an early death—confusion appears and, with it, the uncomfortable question: what was the promise based on?

The 'because I'm worth it' applied to genetics

The most incisive criticism is not aimed at parental love, but at its starting point. It argues that many parents act as if raising a child were an investment with guaranteed returns rather than a biological lottery. The simile that sums up this current is brutal and effective: buying a bicycle and getting indignant because a tire goes flat. The problem is not the flat tire, it says, but having believed that the unit came factory-armored.

Reproducing: instinct, ignorance, or calculation?

Answers are divided. One line reduces the decision to pure instinct: life on Earth has been reproducing for 3.5 billion years without interruption, and whoever does not stop to think executes the inherited program. Another appeals to administrative banality, with the image of officials who organized mass executions without questioning anything while collecting their monthly paycheck. And a third is purely strategic: if elites and certain groups bet on large families while others renounce them, then the key is to have children, without needing to know why.

The less epic version: I can't

Between those extremes lies a much less philosophical reason: material inability. Not having a partner, not making ends meet, not knowing how one will support oneself in a future that seems narrow. It is the least cited argument and, surely, the most widespread. It acknowledges the responsibility of raising someone and concludes that one is not in a position to assume it.

The underlying disagreement is not whether children are loved, but how much conscious decision there is in bringing them into the world. And if that decision admits revision, why do we still treat doubt as a betrayal?