Some people shouldn’t have kids. This may upset some people, but as I’m sure you know, I don’t care. Just as you’re entitled to your opinion, I’m entitled to mine. Disclaimer: I am talking about this objectively; there are obviously specific situations, etc.
Some people just were not meant to take care of other people, and that is okay. I feel like a lot of women go on to have kids because they feel like that’s what’s expected of them, and they don’t want to one day regret not having them. I think it’s better to regret it rather than bring a life into the world and be a terrible parent.
The inspiration behind this blog post is that I’ve seen a lot of people on TikTok debating whether people in poverty should have kids, whether people with severe disabilities should have kids, and whether people who have not healed from their own trauma should have kids. I’ll take this section by section.
Poverty:
I think that it is selfish to intentionally have a child, especially multiple children, when you are aware that you can’t afford to have one kid- let alone multiple. If you are struggling to take care of yourself, how are you supposed to take care of a small human? I am aware that the cost of raising a kid has gone up significantly since the people who are reading this were children, but let’s not act like it wasn’t always expensive to take care of a kid. A prime example of this is the Jenkins Family on TikTok. I haven’t heard much about them recently, but they were popular on TikTok for their living situation. They have a family of seven. Seven. And they were living in a motel room after being evicted from a one-bedroom apartment. The mother, Stephanie, was doing her dishes in the tub while she was pregnant. She knew her situation and was continuing to have kids. I think that there is no other word to describe this than selfishness. Answer just this one question for me: say you want a kid, and you are living in a one-bedroom apartment, making minimum wage, and you can barely scrape by yourself; would you still have a kid? Personally, I would never want to bring a kid into the world who can’t have everything they need and more.
Severe Disabilities
Okay, I think this is a little selfish. My example for this portion is once again TikTok creators. Their names are Antwon and Deja. They suffer from Brittle Bone disease, leaving them both in wheelchairs. Their child suffers from the same disease as them. They both knew what their disease did to them, what they had to miss out on, and how they suffered, and they still had a kid. They said it was okay if their child had Brittle Bone disease because they had it. I just think that if they truly wanted a kid, they should have adopted. Which is still a little iffy, because if they both require a caretaker, how would they fully be able to take care of that child?
Trauma
Now, I don’t have a direct example for this. I just think that if you are aware that you have a lot of trauma and mental health issues that affect the way you act. It’s risky to have a kid, because your issues could affect that kid. Let’s say you have terrible depressive episodes and you aren’t able to do anything at all when you have those episodes. That child’s life doesn’t stop. They still need their father or their mother. That’s not to say never have a kid; just feel yourself first. Let me know what you think. Ci
I’m glad you chose this topic for your blog. I think a lot of parents, who are willingly having these kids, or like it isn’t a crazy accident, are a bit selfish; especially in poverty. But I digress, the gift of life is wonderful, just not a gift everyone needs most times.
I think living in poverty or at most “lower class” range exposes people to a Lot of things people born in middle class families or even upper class aren’t used to or can’t conceptualize vice versa also! whilst I do agree that people in poverty should wait till there “stable” enough to have kids I also know that lots of people have different situations and don’t have that choice anymore. I don’t think it’s quite right to have children when you have disabilities either but also having disabilities are an array of physical and mental limitations. I think a competency test and maybe planned parenthood classes could help! trauma does change people a lot, but I don’t think it’s a reason for them not to have kids as long as they attend therapy and are getting better? I think anyone can snap and potentially harm someone no matter: who, what, where you are. I find this an interesting topic; it’s kind of like abortion both have pros and cons whilst neither is truly good or bad they both have an outcome and the situation affects what happens in the outcome. This isn’t as simple as a should or should not; it’s more situation based.
Dang, I’m on a whole other world on TikTok. Having children shouldn’t just be a “Yeah let’s do it” and have that be the final say and go with the flow. From what I’ve seen from other parents handling children, not just my own, some will be planned and others not so much. But when you plan to have a child, I feel that parents map their lives completely differently compared to when they don’t. It really does just depend on what the parents go through and their lives since it’s a never ending, repeating cycle of: “Parents grow up, they have their kids, those kids grow up into parents, those parents then have their kids.” and honestly, it’s scary.